[TBP]

Published in 1957, but a dead-on description of how things work in America today. Keep this in mind as you watch events unfold over the next several days.

[kiryandil]

Trump stepped on everybody’s Grift.

[BradyLS]

They don’t care about what they destroy. If they aren’t around to enjoy a legacy, they don’t want one and won’t let anyone else have one, either.

[SuperLuminal]

We are now approaching the status of the Russian people in the years 1924-1926 as Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (Josef Stalin) cemented his power and put a final stranglehold on freedom and liberty...

Show trials, political imprisonments, peculiar suicides, neighbors snitching on family & friends, and the complete revision of history are still the principal tools for establishing absolute control...

With current technologies, it is apparent that this current Soviet-style tyranny will last far longer than the Soviet Union did...

When Ronald Reagan talked of a thousand years of darkest tyranny, he knew what he was talking about...

[gattaca]

ping

[HockeyPop]

“It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.”
Stephen Crane

The Red Badge of Courage

[ByteMercenary]

I am sure that a scene like this was played out in the boardrooms of Ford, GM, et al which is why we are being inundated with EVs, vehicles that almost nobody wants.

[The Duke]

I had a long-time friend who grew up in Ceausescu's Romania, and this is EXACTLY what he experienced growing up. The system forced everyone onto the black market so that you could be reeled in whenever it suited the system.

As a very young man he made his first money visiting towns near the border to record music from radio stations of free nations on cassettes, and then duplicating and reselling those cassettes on the streets of Bucharest.

He went on to escape to the US, where he obtained his PhD and made millions writing and selling computer software.

Julian, who had escaped the worst form of Communism, is no longer alive. Although healthy, the "Covid treatment" killed him.

I guess he didn't escape The Beast after all.

[conservativeimage]

“I do not recognize this court’s right to try me.”

“I do not recognize my action as a crime.”

“I will not help you to pretend that I have a chance. I will not help you
to preserve an appearance of righteousness where rights are not recognized. I
will not help you to preserve an appearance of rationality by entering a
debate in which a gun is the final argument. I will not help you to pretend
that you are administering justice.”

“If you choose to deal with men by means of
compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary cooperation
of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And
your victims should discover that it is their own volition - which you cannot force -
that makes you possible. I choose to be consistent and I will obey you
in the manner you demand. Whatever you wish me to do, I will do it at the
point of a gun. If you sentence me to jail, you will have to send armed men
to carry me there - I will not volunteer to move. If you fine me, you will have
to seize my property to collect the fine - I will not volunteer to pay it. If
you believe that you have the right to force me - use your guns openly. I will
not help you to disguise the nature of your action.”

https://archive.org/stream/AtlasShrugged/atlas%20shrugged_djvu.txt

[GOPJ]

We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

There's a reason this book's a classic... it's really 'cash in on the guilt AND fear'...

[Wildbill22]

Who is Sotashi Nakamoto?,,,

[1Old Pro]

The prescience is chilling.