This Week’s Quote: “I learned from my great-grandfather to dispense with attendance at public schools, and to enjoy good teachers at home, and to recognize that on such things money should be eagerly spent.” —Marcus Aurelius
This Week’s Quote: “If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one.” —Fritz Machlup
The medical issues I’ve been having (actually political, not medical), immediately followed by a death in the family, means there’ll be no podcast this weekend. Apologies. It’ll resume next week.
This Week’s Quote: “To prevent the wildest anarchy in thought and act, the government must put limits upon the free play of opinion. In part, it can reach that end by mere propaganda, by the bald force of its authority—that is, by making certain doctrines officially infamous. But in part it must resort to force, i.e., to law.” —H.L. Mencken
This Week’s Quote: “The First Amendment presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many this is, and will always be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all.” —Learned Hand
This Week’s Quote: “A capitalist economic act involves first of all an expectation of profit based on the utilization of opportunities for exchange; that is, of peaceful opportunities for acquisition. Formal and actual acquisition through violence follows its own special laws and hence should best be placed in a different category.” —Max Weber
This Week’s Quote: “There’s this argument that we hear again and again, country after country, language after language, you can hear this in Spanish, you can hear this in English, you can hear this in Russian, you can hear this in Chinese. They say, ‘It doesn’t matter how much power the government has. It doesn’t matter how much they’re spying on you. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Don’t worry about it. We’re only going to use these powers against criminals.'” —Edward Snowden
This Week’s Quote: “Humans are tribal so I guess it shouldn’t be that surprising, but it’s still amazing how the US media treats accusations from the US Government as unquestionably true, while similar accusations from adversary governments are inherently false.” —Glenn Greenwald
This Week’s Quote: “There is something miserable in the figure who enjoyed in their youth the freedom of speech, but from the comfort of age seeks to deny it to others; some deformity of the soul.” —Edward Snowden
