Analysis Archives - Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

The French codes are often difficult of comprehension, but they can be read by every one; nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents.

We know that love doesn’t mean unquestioning acceptance, constant affirmation, or bottomless approval. People who expect these things are narcissists; people who indulge them are sycophants.

I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

If you can’t tell whether a simple plan or a complicated one will be the best, choose the simple one. If it’s a coin toss, you might as well do whatever is easiest.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

There are people in government who don’t want other people to know what they know. It’s just another example of elitism. And I spit on elitism. Show me an elitist, and I’ll show you a loser.

Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it.

A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

Wheresoever the bishop appears, there let the people be, even as wheresoever Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church.

Numbers, by nature, don’t elicit much sympathy.

For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

The element of truth behind all this, which people are so ready to disavow, is that men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved . . . ; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness.

If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. . . . We are dealing with fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.

There is . . . a close bond and necessary relation between . . . freedom and productive industry. This proposition is generally true of all nations, but especially of democratic nations.

Peace requires arrangements by which other people can prosper. It is our duty to contribute of our capital and our skill to that prosperity.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.

We are never so inescapably ourselves as when we are alone with God.

When ignorance destroys culture, monsters will emerge.

State welfare leaves the poor with little incentive to improve their situation because their basic needs are being met. A free ride through life doesn’t help people in the long run—it destroys their greatest capacity to learn and grow.

Perhaps everything has external and internal aspects. The external properties are those that science can capture and describe—through interactions, in terms of relationships. The internal aspect is the intrinsic essence; it is the reality that is not expressible in the language of interactions and relations.

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