Samizdata

The conjunction of dreaming and ruling generates tyranny.
– Michael Oakeshott

When words lose their meaning, people will lose their liberty
– Confucius

For example the term ‘liberal’… once meant (& to some, prefaced by ‘classical’, it still does) a supporter of individual liberties against both force backed custom (paleo-conservativism) and force backed allegedly rational planning (socialism). It is now generally used as a euphemism for ‘democratic socialism’.

Rousseau’s reputation during his lifetime, and his influence after his death, raise disturbing questions about human gullibility, and indeed about the human propensity to reject evidence it does not wish to admit.
– Paul Johnson

This is truly terrifying. It’s almost as if, in addition to the Fabian socialists, a parallel group of Fabian fascists was loose in Europe – except they actually found a way into the bureaucracy to steer it.
– Brad Ems

I am never in favour of war… but the fact is we are now in a war, so the question is, do we win it?
– David Carr

That’s why it’s always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it’s all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does A Falling Tree in the Forest Make A Sound if There’s No one There to Hear It, and then just when you think they’re going to start dribbling one of ’em says, Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy’s ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles.
-The many and varied advantages of philosophy (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)