#piracy

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean we should all attack ships and steal their gold. ↗

— Lemony Snicket

#piracy #traditional #humor

I don't think you should be an Auror, Harry," said Luna unexpectedly. Everybody looked at her. "The Aurors are part of the Rotfang Conspiracy, I thought everyone knew that. They're working to bring down the Ministry of Magic from within using a mixture of dark magic and gum disease. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#conspiracy #gum-disease #harry-potter #humor #luna-lovegood

Conspiracy theory is the ultimate refuge of the powerless. If you cannot change your own life, it must be that some greater force controls the world. ↗

— Roger Cohen

#change

Money doesn't mind if we say it's evil, it goes from strength to strength. It's a fiction, an addiction, and a tacit conspiracy. ↗

— Martin Amis

#conspiracy #evil #fiction #goes #mind

Let me say what I actually believe. I believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy, by Al Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden, and no one else trying to hurt America. ↗

— Van Jones

#al #america #believe #bin #conspiracy

I think all artists struggle to represent the geometry of life in their own way, just like writers deal with archetypes. There are only so many stories that you can tell, but an infinite number of storytellers. ↗

— Henry Mosquera

#conspiracy #espionage #hacker #latin-america #martial-arts

Antisemitism is unique among religious hatreds. It is a racist conspiracy theory fashioned for the needs of messianic and brutal rulers, as dictators from the Tsars to the Islamists via the Nazis have shown. Many other alleged religious 'hatreds' are not hatreds in the true sense. If I criticise Islamic, Orthodox Jewish or Catholic attitudes towards women, for instance, and I'm accused of being a bigot, I shrug and say it is not bigoted to oppose bigotry. ↗

— Nick Cohen

#bigotry #catholicism #conspiracy-theories #dictatorship #feminism

Piracy is robbery with violence, often segueing into murder, rape and kidnapping. It is one of the most frightening crimes in the world. Using the same term to describe a twelve-year-old swapping music with friends, even thousands of songs, is evidence of a loss of perspective so astounding that it invites and deserves the derision it receives. ↗

— Nick Harkaway

#culture #digital #ip #piracy #technology

But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution.' 'What sort of tools?' 'More stringent security measures. Universal electronic surveillance. No-knock laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, conducted by a handful of men, the people reason—or are manipulated into reasoning—that the entire population must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted. ↗

— Robert Anton Wilson

#freedom #george-dorn #hagbard-celine #oppression #rights

[The militia experts] accuse antigoverment agitants of paranoia, yet they spin around and claim that militias speak in coded phrases, have underground bunkers, and are secretly conspiring to take over the world and enslave minorities. They say it`s lunacy that men at the pentagon can conspire, yet they`re certain that farmers out on the plain are plotting as we speak. They depict the United Nations as weak und ineffectual, yet they portray raggedy-ass backwoodsmen as the world`s biggest organized military threat. ↗

— Jim Goad

#conspiracy #domestic-terrorism #militia #militia-experts #millitias