As Dave Smith predicted, the arguments that “Putin will march on Poland next” or that this conflict represents “Putin’s attempt to recreate the Soviet Union” — therefore justifying endless support for war in the region — have all been abandoned at precisely the moment that fanatical enthusiasm for total war was diverted from this part of the world to another; and in turn, the only civilised, human conclusion to meaningless violence and murder, that is, peace and negotiation — that which would have formerly been met with accusations of utopianism, cowardice, and treason — is no longer met with ostracism but rather claimed by the advocates of war as being a part of their wargame all along. By encouraging industrial-scale violence and murder and then taking the position of “no regrets” despite now adopting the same position of the peace advocates with whom one frequently argued against for the entirety of the conflict, Kisin demonstrates his flippant disregard for human life and his having learnt nothing from such a pointless and avoidable war.

It's Time to End the War in Ukraine

As someone who has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine’s fight for its sovereignty since the day it was invaded, I take no pleasure in writing this...

“The human race thrives only because of the lack of control, not because of it.” — Jeffrey Tucker

“What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.” — Thomas Sowell

“I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.” — Albert Einstein

“This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business.” — Albert Einstein

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. You cannot subjugate a nation forcibly unless you wipe out every man, woman, and child. Unless you wish to use such drastic measures, you must find a way of settling your disputes without resort to arms.” — Albert Einstein

“Freedom, ‘that terrible word inscribed on the chariot of the storm,’ is the motivating principle of all revolutions. Without it, justice seems inconceivable to the rebel’s mind. There comes a time, however, when justice demands the suspension of freedom. Then terror, on a grand or small scale, makes its appearance to consummate the revolution. Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being. But one day nostalgia takes up arms and assumes the responsibility of total guilt; in other words, adopts murder and violence. The servile rebellions, the regicide revolutions, and those of the twentieth century have thus, consciously, accepted a burden of guilt which increased in proportion to the degree of liberation they proposed to introduce.” — Albert Camus, The Rebel (1951)

“Today’s rebel is tomorrow’s tyrant.” — Will & Ariel Durant

“What I think needs to be done at the present time is simply this: in the midst of a murderous world, we must decide to reflect on murder and choose. If we can do this, then we will divide ourselves into two groups: those who if need be would be willing to commit murder or become accomplices to murder, and those who would refuse to do so with every fiber of their being… I, for one, am practically certain that I have made my choice. And having chosen, it seemed to me that I ought to speak, to say that I would never count myself among people of whatever stripe who are willing to countenance murder, and I would draw whatever consequence followed from this.” — Albert Camus, Neither Victims nor Executioners (1946)

“Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.” — Joseph Campbell

“The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.” — Aldous Huxley

[John the Savage] “But I like the inconveniences.” [World Controller] “We don’t. We prefer to do things comfortably.” [John the Savage] “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” [World Controller] “In fact, you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.” [John the Savage] “All right then. I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.” [World Controller] “Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.” [John the Savage] “I claim them all.” — Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)

“The world will ask who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.” — Carl Jung

“Everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.” — Leo Tolstoy, On Anarchy (1900)

“The true remedy for most evils is none other than liberty, unlimited and complete liberty, liberty in every field of human endeavor.” — Gustave de Molinari

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Buckminster Fuller

“What is called the utopian dream of pacifism is in fact a practical policy — indeed the only practical, the only realistic policy that there is.” — Aldous Huxley

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” — Albert Einstein