“The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”

“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.”

When men and women discard honesty and ethics all in the interest in making a buck or two more at our collective expense, then we end up with these types of multiple crises. Most if not all of them have links back to corruption and cronyism as their root cause. If forthright honesty still had value in our times, few if any crises would be on the horizon.

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“When you see that trading is done, not by consent but by compulsion, when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing, when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods but in favors, when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you, when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed.” – Ayn Rand

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Carl Nemo **==