January 24, 2007

• I didn’t say it.

  Some quotations:

   A human being should be able to change a
  diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write
  a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take
  orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new
  problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight
  efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

  Robert A. Heinlein, from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

  The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

  Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock and The Third Wave

  “The very existence of the State demands that there be some privileged class vitally interested in maintaining that existence and it is precisely the group interests of that class that are called patriotism.”

  Michael Bakunin, Letters on Patriotism, 1869.

  Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something. —– Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let’s play that over again, too. Who decides? —– Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure “good” government; it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare — most people want to run things but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the “backseat-driver syndrome.”

  Lazarus Long again

  Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.

  Toffler again

  No state has an
  inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the long run, no
  state ever has. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: “Come back with
  your shield, or on it.” Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome.

  Lazarus Long again
  

  • 8:36 pm
  • 6 Comments