People From Iowa

"We are here to become great men and women, and with that purpose in view, we must eliminate everything in our religion and philosophy that tends to make the human mind a dependent weakling. If you would serve God and be truly religious, do not kneel before God, but learn to walk with God, and do something tangible every day to increase the happiness of mankind. This is religion that is worth while, and it is such religion alone that can please the Infinite."

"The pessimist waits for better times, and expects to keep on waiting; the optimist goes to work with the best that is at hand now, and proceeds to create better times."

"They are damn good projects - excellent projects. That goes for all the projects up there. You know some people make fun of people who speak a foreign language, and dumb people criticize something they do not understand, and that is what is going on up there - God damn it!"

"Tax and Tax, spend and spend, elect and elect."

"Communities now find themselves in possession of improvements [resulting from the WPA] which even in 1929 they would have thought themselves presumptuous to dream of... [but] everywhere there had been an overhauling of the word presumptuous. We are beginning to wonder if it is not presumptuous to take for granted that some people should have much, and some should have nothing; that some people are less important than others and should die earlier; that the children of the comfortable should be taller and fatter, as a matter of right, than the other children of the poor."

"A print of the painting, The Prayer At Valley Forge, depicting George Washington on bended knee, praying in the hard snow at Valley Forge, hangs over the desk in my office. If the practice of witchcraft, such as is allowed now at Fort Hood, is permitted to stand, one wonders what paintings will grace the walls of future generations."

"Every American is hard-wired in history or experience to be libertarian about something."

"What has to do with your ability to fall asleep is not caffeine. It's having a clean conscience. I have a clean conscience so I can drink all the caffeine I want."

"The definition of throwing your vote away is to go into that voting booth and vote for one of two parties that will not change the direction this country's going in."

"Defending the Constitution is always important. That duty is even more vital today, when the president and top administration officials argue that the executive branch may break the law whenever the president deems it to be necessary in a time which he declares to be wartime."

"...there remains time to turn back the constitutional clock and roll back excessive post-9/11 powers before we turn the corner into another Japanese internment or, closer to our own experiences, before we witness a legally sanctioned Ruby Ridge or Waco scenario."

"There is no legitimate use whatsoever for marijuana. This is not medicine. This is bogus witchcraft. It has no place in medicine, no place in pain relief..."

"Clearly, the court today has ignored the constitutional right and responsibility of Congress to pass laws protecting citizens from dangerous and addictive narcotics..."

"[Netscape will soon reduce Windows to] a poorly debugged set of device drivers."

"I'm glad there's OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet."

"The two premodern religions were ancestor worship and nature worship (see "The Ancient City" by Fustel de Coulanges). The two postmodern religions are evidently identitarianism and environmentalism. Is this a coincidence, or something deeper?"

"The Ancient City by Numa Denis Fustel De Coulanges -- the single best book I have found on who we are and how we got here."

"Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?"

"The process of planning is very valuable, for forcing you to think hard about what you are doing, but the actual plan that results from it is probably useless"

"Software is eating the world"

"The covenant form is essential not only for understanding certain highly unusual features of the Old Testament faith, but also for understanding the existence of the community itself and the interrelatedness of the different aspects of early Israel's social culture. Here we reach a clear watershed, so to speak, in historical research. Do the people create a religion, or does the religion create a people? Historically, when we are dealing with the formative period of Moses and the Judges, there can be no doubt that the latter is correct, for the historical, linguistic and archaeological evidence is too powerful to deny. Religion furnished the foundation for a unity far beyond what had existed before, and the covenant appears to have been the only conceivable instrument through which the unity was brought about and expressed. If the very heart and center of religion is "allegiance," which the Bible terms "love," religion and covenant become virtually identical. Out of this flows nearly the whole of those aspects of biblical faith that constitute impressive contrasts to the ancient paganism of the ancient Near Eastern world, in spite of increasingly massive evidence that the community of ancient Israel did not constitute a radical contrast to them either ethnically, in material culture, or in many patterns of thought or language."

"In Luther's writings concerning Law and Gospel, he had already observed concerning the phrase, "I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.." "This is purest Gospel." In other words, the structure of the Christian faith is identical to that of the original biblical covenant, and both are similar to the ways of thinking in ecumenical world politics at the time of Moses: that obedience to a set of stipulations is the required result of gratitude for benefits that have already been received. It is a matter of cause and effect, not simply an arbitrary command.This is the structure of the original Old Testament and of New Testament religious ethics. This contrasts in the sharpest possible way to the attitudes and tactics of far too many religious zealots of the present world, who are determined to use the force of law to compel people to act in accordance with their concept of divine commands. This in turn is one of the major causes of the widespread antipathy to religion that is growing in the modern world, and of the desecration of the name of God.Thus, the misunderstanding of ancient covenants has led to the distortion of the ten commitments of faith into commandments, usually of some human authority."

"A numinous experience lacking further significance quickly degenerates into mere superstition, easily rationalized or forgotten over time. What prevented this particular experience from such a fate was its connection with something of urgent significance to this diverse group of escaped slaves: a covenant. The covenant revealed at Mount Sinai directly addressed their wilderness predicament by proposing a framework on which this heterogeneous collection of individuals could see beyond their differences and together build a future, no longer as a “mixed rabble” but as “one people.” The thunderstorm at the mountain powerfully reinforced the sacred quality and value of the covenant delivered there by Moses, and the value of this covenant, in turn, powerfully reinforced the escaped slaves’ belief that, in this particular thunderstorm, they had indeed witnessed the presence and voice of a god.In antiquity, the revelation of a new religious insight or system was not described in terms of human inspiration or innovation but rather as a divine revelation associated with a theophany. The theophany was the typical motif used to explain the origin of something new and meaningful. But something new can only become meaningful if it is also expressed and described in terms and analogies that are already well-known to everyone concerned. Despite its religious novelty, the Sinai covenant Moses delivered was readily intelligible to these ex-slaves because it employed well-known concepts and images, in this case concepts and images drawn from the familiar world of Late Bronze Age international politics. Naturally, they were adapted so that they now served religious as opposed to political ends, providing a basis for a community whose cohesion did not require any political enforcement mechanism or monopoly of force."

"The series of events leading up to the formation of the biblical community and its religion apparently began unexpectedly. Moses killed an Egyptian overseer who was beating one of the slaves. It is difficult to imagine this being a fictional invention, especially since the biblical writers never chose to comment on this noteworthy aspect of the protagonist’s dark past. When Moses later tried to intervene between two quarreling slaves, one of them responded, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exodus 2:11-15). Is the monopoly of force — the ability to coerce other human beings — truly the ultimate basis of social authority? If it seems undesirable to ground social authority on something that essentially boils down to the superior ability to commit murder, then what is the alternative?"

"Martin Luther once observed that your “god” is that which you most fear to lose. More recently, Paul Tillich defined a “god” as an “Ultimate Concern.” For the influential citizens and decision makers of the Late Bronze Age, the “Ultimate Concerns” they most feared losing were power and prosperity, and the political apparatus that was believed to guarantee both. For the elite, these concerns took precedence over almost every other consideration. Like many modern folk, they found it impossible to conceive of the reality of the divine apart from some social system of coercion and force. To worship Baal and Asherah was to affirm the supreme value that power and wealth played in making all human life and experience meaningful.This sort of pagan religious ideology almost inevitably sows the seeds of its own demise. Where power and wealth are the predominant concerns and sacred ends, society dissolves into a self-destructive struggle to obtain them. And the more widely held such a religious ideology, the more widespread the violence will likely be, destroying especially those who most faithfully embrace it."

"Further, such Levite names as Mūšī, Merārī, Qīšī and others raise the question of whether or not the curious "ethnic" nature of the Levites may not be explained by their pre-Israelite origin as Luwians, who also were evidently noteworthy for their expertise in rituals (footnote: The original "secular" and warlike nature of the Levites has been a mystery for decades; cf. especially Genesis 34 and 49:5). The shift from Luwi to Lēwi is of course exactly paralleled by shifts from sǔm to šēm, and ‘um to ‘ēm, and the "ethnic" Luwi fell together with the Semitic lawī- ‘lent, dedicated.’ Only Luwi can explain the ē by "umlaut.""

"The messages of the prophets are essentially indictments of Israel for breach of covenant. They preserved some memory of the old traditions, but were not so naive as to think that the literal demands of the old law would be adequate in their own times. There is no condemnation of the stratification of society as such, rather a condemnation of the injustice and extortion which was done by the powerful. To take a specific example, the old law knew as security for a loan only the pledge (Exod. 22:26). In a simple economy, loans were evidently of an amount which would usually be adequately secured by giving to the creditor some property to hold until the loan was repaid. In case of default, the debtor's property simply reverted to the creditor. No other form of security is presupposed in the Covenant Code, and it is specifically forbidden that an Israelite be a "creditor" to one of his fellows. Already in the reign of Saul the situation had changed, Those who gathered about David as outlaws included those who had "creditors" (I Sam. 22:2), and who therefore had to flee. Under the old pledge system of security there would be no possible occasion for flight from the community in case of default. A totally different legal doctrine had come into practice whereby the person of the debtor was security for a loan. Upon default the creditor could seize him (or his family) as a slave, possibly without any legal action at all. The only alternative to slavery would have been flight. This doctrine is identical to that of Babylonian law, and no doubt of the Canaanites as well. It is in the law of the monarchy that Canaanite influence is doubtless to be posited, but it is a legal tradition in total contradiction to the customs and morality of early Israel. Amos protested violently against the way the legal doctrine was practiced, as did most of the prophets (Am. 2:6; Hos. 12:8-9; Mic. 2:1-2). The later lawcodes illustrate beautifully the way in which the early traditions, and the needs of business were brought into harmony. The older pledge system was simply inadequate for a commercial economy; and if the person of the debtor was to be protected, so also must the rights of the creditor to some security for his loan to be guaranteed. Therefore, Deuteronomy and the Holiness Code (Lv. 17-26) accept the doctrine of bodily liability, but place restrictions upon the powers of the creditor over the defaulting debtor. In the Holiness Code he is not to be treated as a slave, nor given the legal status of a slave, but rather to be as a hired laborer."

"I have pleaded (labor's) case, not in the quavering tones of a feeble mendicant asking alms, but in the thundering voice of the captain of a mighty host, demanding the rights to which free men are entitled."

"the corrupt mismanagement of UMWA president Tony Boyle had tanked the UMWA-controlled Welfare and Retirement Fund, which previous UMWA president John L. Lewis had implemented in the 1950s to provide for workers who had given their bodies (and often, their lives) to the mines."

"Labor, like Israel, has many sorrows. Its women weep for their fallen and they lament for the future of the children of the race. It ill behooves one who has supped at labor's table and who has been sheltered in labor's house to curse with equal fervor and fine impartiality both labor and its adversaries when they become locked in deadly embrace."

"Workers have kept faith in American institutions. Most of the conflicts which have occurred have been when labor's right to live has been challenged and denied."

"Labor is marching toward the goal of industrial democracy and contributing constructively toward a more rational arrangement of our domestic economy."

"If there is to be peace in our industrial life, let the employer recognize his obligation to his employees - at least to the degree set forth in existing statutes."

"The organized workers of America, free in their industrial life, conscious partners in production, secure in their homes and enjoying a decent standard of living, will prove the finest bulwark against the intrusion of alien doctrines of government."

"No tin-hat brigade of goose-stepping vigilantes or bibble-babbling mob of blackguarding and corporation paid scoundrels will prevent the onward march of labor, or divert its purpose to play its natural and rational part in the development of the economic, political and social life of our nation."

"The workers of the nation were tired of waiting for corporate industry to right their economic wrongs, to alleviate their social agony and to grant them their political rights. Despairing of fair treatment, they resolved to do something for themselves."

"Who gets the bird, the hunter or the dog?"

"In an article I wrote called Ragnarok, I used the term "WOTAN" for the armed party, because it is an excellent anagram for "WILL OF THE ARYAN NATION." The goal of W.O.T.A.N. is clear. He must hasten the demise of the system before it totally destroys our gene pool."

"An unarmed or non-militant People will be enslaved."

"Miscegenation, that is race-mixing, is and has always been, the greatest threat to the survival of the Aryan race."

"A People without a culture exclusively their own will perish."

"Tyrannies teach what to think; free men learn how to think."

"In the final analysis, a race or specie is not judged superior or inferior by its accomplishments, but by its will and ability to survive."

"People who allow others not of their race to live among them will perish, because the inevitable result of a racial integration is racial inter-breeding which destroys the characteristics and existence of a race. Forced integration is deliberate and malicious genocide, particularly for a People like the White race, who are now a small minority in the world."

"A people who are not convinced of their uniqueness and value will perish."

"Discernment is a sign of a healthy People. In a sick or dying nation, civilization, culture or race, substance is abandoned in favor of appearance."

"In accord with Nature’s Laws, nothing is more right than the preservation of one’s own race."

"Votes, constitutions, divine salvation, and other solutions are the pipe dreams of cowards or the honey coated deceptions of enemy agents. A people without the courage or integrity to identify their executioners, or their executioners’ institutions, are doomed to extinction."

"The purpose of the Pyramid Prophecy is promulgation of the 14 Words and 88 Precepts as foundations of a religion that will save the race of Galileo, Shakespeare, Kipling, Edison, Plato etc., from eternal extinction. Hopefully there are those of vision who will use it wisely in furtherance of Nature's highest Law."

"Morality consists of reproduction, survival of the race, and loyalty to our comrades. And not much else."