Posted by JohnF on 11/17/10
Last updated 11/17/10

If you live in Central Florida, district 7, contact John Mica about this bill. He helped create the TSA and has become critical of it:

http://www.cfnews13.com/article/news/2010/november/173904/Rep-John-Mica-urges-ai
rports-to-opt-out-of-TSA-screening

http://mica.house.gov/Contact/ContactForm.htm

He's the ranking member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. His voting record is fairly decent, but he did help create this monstrosity and I want to see him put his money where his mouth is on this bill.

Posted by JohnF on 07/23/09
Last updated 07/28/09

Mr. Mica, I followed the Financial Services hearing yesterday, where Fed Chairman Bernanke was questioned. In the hearing, Mr. Bernanke said the following: "Prompt attention to questions of fiscal sustainability is particularly critical because of the coming budgetary and economic challenges associated with the retirement of the baby-boom generation and continued increases in the costs of Medicare and Medicaid."

I'm a 27 year old small business owner, and I have noticed two things since I graduated: 1. Business opportunities and job prospects for young people are very hard to find and 2. There is no political pressure to bring the government's budget to a sustainable level.

In his famous essay on government in 1848, Frederic Bastiat said "government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." Personally, I went to a Christian school from K-12, I didn't go to college; and I didn't buy a house I couldn't afford through a government subsidized loan. I'm not trading in my old car for a government credit at the car dealership. I don't want "free health care." Social Security won't be there when I'm old. I pay all my taxes, even when they're hard to afford; and I don't care about Woodrow Wilson's pedantic, antiquated idea of trying to bring democracy to the world, as if democracy is a noble goal in and of itself. I have many friends my age who feel the same way.

Mr. Mica, everybody is living at my expense, but I don't want to live at the expense of everybody. It's immoral, unconstitutional and unAmerican. What's more, it's unsustainable. My generation does not want and can't afford a 56 trillion dollar national debt (including entitlements). We need to end failed wars and failed programs. Tough choices need to be made now because there is no convenient season to make them. Social Security needs to be phased out, trade deficits need to be reconciled, foreign aid needs to be abolished, soldiers in Europe and Asia need to be brought home. Military installations in foreign countries which cost billions and provide zero benefit to hard working Americans need to be closed.

I am writing you this message because you're the only representative I trust. I feel as though our Senators are too high up in their ivory tower to hear what I have to say. Please do what you can. Thank you.

Posted 07/23/09 ahoyle1986 Longwood, FL

Very well said. I really hope you will post Rep. Mica's response on this as well, since I am also a part of District 7.

Posted by JohnF on 03/30/09
Last updated 04/01/09

Everyone is looking to the government to fix our country's current economic instability. In my opinion, this is based on the false assumption that the state has the inherent ability to solve problems. The government is wasting trillions on bailouts and pork barrel projects to no avail, putting us deeper in debt. It seems like we have a new bailout every week or two. It's time we all took measures to counteract what the state is trying to do to us. Here is a list of things we can do to help America:

1. Make less money.
Many people are dissatisfied with what the government does, and they dream of a tax revolt to cripple Washington. At the same time, they're afraid of the moral and legal implications of such an act. Many people make more money than they need to live, and they blow the rest on useless toys, vacations and amenities. Paradoxically, they tend to be in a lot of debt. This is a mistake. Obama wants to tax the upper middle class. Instead of being coerced into paying the government more money, why not forgo the accumulation of wealth and debt in the first place? Make what you need to live and save. Live an austere lifestyle.

2. Sell your stuff overseas.
This goes along with #1. Many Americans have a bunch of stuff they don't use anymore. Put it on eBay for a penny and choose no US shipping (local pickup only, you'll get very few local bids on eBay). Electronics are especially popular with overseas bidders. Use the money to pay off debt.

3. Get out of banks and use cash.
Do you think bank cards are convenient? The TARP bailout contained code which allows the IRS to track and audit all credit & debit card transactions in the US. Additionally, using cash curtails the FED's ability to loan money to banks or buy government Treasury debt because it forces the FED to monetize more transactions, which increases the physical money supply. Cash your paycheck and pay all your monthly bills in cash. Try not to have a checking account at all; but if you have one, don't keep a lot of money in it. Your savings should already be in commodities like oil, agriculture and precious metals. At the very least, it should be in cash. Keeping your money in CDs is a huge mistake. Pay the penalty and get it out. The interest they are paying you is way less than the rate of inflation. With the government pumping money into the banks, you're literally paying the bank to let them loan your money out. Once the banks begin loaning carte blanche (as Obama wants them to), you're going to be a big loser. Your money will depreciate in value. Buy a safe and a gun and start funneling your money away from banks slowly and steadily.

4. Get out of debt no matter what.
This is a no-brainer. Don't have or use credit cards. Stop caring about your credit rating. If you're underwater, consider bankruptcy.

5. Stop spending.
Americans have over 2 cars per household, and the president is coercing people to buy more cars through tax credits. Keep your vehicles until they stop running, and buy your next car with cash (buy used). Stop buying depreciating consumer goods like consumer electronics. Stop going out to eat. Stop going to the movies. Don't go on vacation for at least a few years. Stop spending five dollars for coffee and six dollars for ice cream. Buy your coffee and ice cream at the store.

6. Make something.
Consider starting a side business producing something which you can sell on the internet. My wife and I produce cosmetics, and sell them at a decent profit, many times to places like Turkey, Australia, the UK and New Zealand. Do something you like to do. Start a garden, sew your own clothes, make your own furniture, etc.

7. Never finance the government.
Don't invest in government debt. This is obvious. The government's main job is to preserve and protect the Constitution. It's not doing its job, so you should not invest in it. There are also moral implications involved. The government is not paying its debts. When its bills come due, it simply issues more debt and pays the interest. It never makes a payment on the principle. By participating in this Ponzi scheme, you are benefitting from the US government's fraudulent activities. The same thing can be said about playing the lottery.

8. Don't speculate.
Don't invest in a stock, home or anything that you think you can "buy low and sell high," right now. Things which have a low actual value, but that get bid up during a boom are not the road to wealth and prosperity. They are the road to a financial downfall, which is what we're experiencing right now. The government wants to create another bubble, don't participate.

9. Help people.
If someone is in need, help them. Give them money or buy them food. There will be more need as time passes. Every dollar you give someone in need directly is a dollar the government doesn't give them. It has been said that for every dollar the government taxes, it spends $1.20. Right now, it's probably spending a lot more than that. The real burden of government is not what it taxes, but what it spends.

10. MSM
Stop listening to what the mainstream media has to say. Marginalize them. During a time like this, ivory tower entertainer types like the ones you hear on talk radio, Fox News, CNN, etc. don't matter. Their ratings should go way down. They are out of touch with the American people at large, and their principles are on sale for high ratings.

Posted by JohnF on 02/20/09
Last updated 02/23/09

John Maynard Keynes was an English economist who was born in the late 19th century and who died some sixty-two years ago. His book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money was written in 1933 and has stood as a highly influential economics text since it was published. In his biography of John Maynard Keynes, Robert Skidelsky said the unstated message in Keynes's theory was:

"The state is wise and the market is stupid."

Recently, the king of the United States, Barack Obama, decided to take a page out of Keynes to finance a huge spending bill, sometimes erroneously called a "stimulus." He even had the audacity (of hope?) to make the statement that all economists agree this is a good course of action. First of all, this is not true; but secondly, who cares? Is it any wonder that The State's crony economists agree that the government should spend huge sums of money, mortgage our children's future and increase its control over the economy? At one time in history, The State told the earth it was flat and killed anyone who didn't agree.

King Barack has promised us change, but this is not change. This is just the tired, old policy of a long dead English economist. It has been done countless times to ill effect. Didn't we secede from Great Britain?

One of the most beloved ideas of Keynesianism is the Spending Multiplier. In fact, the Spending Multiplier is pretty much the driving force behind government spending during times of crisis. It goes like this. The government decides to build a bridge, hires ten men to do the job, and pays each man a dollar for their labor. The men all go to different stores and spend their dollars, and the store owners all go out to eat and spend the dollars from the bridge-builders, ad infinitum.

By building the bridge, the government has provided wealth and prosperity for the entire economy. The bridge-builder would not have his dollar without the beneficence of the government; he would be a dollar poorer. The same can be said of the store owner and the restaurateur. By spending ten dollars, the government has effectively created thirty dollars (possibly more, possibly less) in wealth. The government has "increased aggregate demand," by giving the economy a "shot in the arm."

This is what Keynes called The Spending Multiplier. Does it sound right to you?

When I first read about this idea and understood what it meant, it sounded too good to be true. It sounded like a get rich quick scheme on a late night infomercial with Kevin Trudeau. It sounded like...a fairy tale. A girl who can spin straw into gold, a king who can turn anything into gold just by touching it, an alchemist, a goose that lays golden eggs; they're all stories that I read in elementary school. Back then, I doubted they could be true; but they were there to teach me something. They taught me that you can't get something for nothing. There's no such thing as a free lunch, yet it seems the great minds who influence our king; and even the king himself still believe there are monsters under the bed.

There are really several things wrong with this idea. First of all, it is an example of The Broken Window Fallacy as explained by Bastiat well before Keynes was even born. Every dollar in government spending is paid by the taxpayers either immediately or eventually. There is no such thing as a free lunch because SOMEONE pays for the lunch. My father explained this to me when I was a boy and I had no trouble understanding, yet it seems to elude the most powerful men in our country. It also seems ridiculous to say that by spending ten dollars, the government has created thirty dollars in wealth. Obviously, they have only created ten dollars in wealth, right? Wrong.

The government has actually created nothing, except a bridge. We now have a bridge instead of a farm, a factory, a mine, a school, a hospital or any number of other projects. Maybe the bridge benefits society and maybe it doesn't; but that's irrelevant. The point is, if we did not have the bridge, we (the taxpayers) would have had ten dollars more capital to deploy into some other project. The men who built the bridge would not have been employed building a bridge, but maybe they would have been employed in something else. Maybe other men who weren't employed building the bridge would have been employed in something else. The government cannot create anything. It's not God and it's not Rumpelstiltskin or King Midas. Money does not magically multiply itself, except at the Federal Reserve.

Furthermore, when an economist or the government tells you a policy will "increase aggregate demand," they have really told you nothing at all. Those three words are a meaningless non sequitur. The same amount of real goods still exists, and reality teaches us that DEMAND IS INFINITE. Demand is only limited by supply because there is a thing which exists in the world called a price. When there is a high supply of goods in relation to demand, prices drop and the excess supply is eventually sold off. This is sometimes called a sale or clearance. Keynesians believe there is this giant store of goods idling away in warehouses somewhere, waiting for demand to increase. They believe that by giving people work and money, they are giving the go ahead to start buying. In other words, they believe demand is a nominal, elastic value which they can manipulate at will. This is false. Demand is human wants and needs, which are infinite. If there are goods idling away during a recession, it's because investors are afraid to invest their money.

This brings me to the second thing wrong with Keynesianism: governments throughout the history of mankind have proven to be terrible at deploying capital and allocating resources. They tend to spend money on pet projects which are not market driven, simultaneously depriving other viable projects of capital (making it difficult for market-driven enterprises to compete). Despite what the government would have us to believe, there is a limited supply of capital in the world, because capital is not money. We may use money to buy capital, but capital is actually the real goods and products that go into starting and cultivating a business. Once these capital goods are squandered, you can never regain what is lost in terms of opportunity cost. This hurts the economy.

A good example of this is corn ethanol. Currently, we subsidize corn ethanol production in this country on the basis that it will help us gain energy independence. It actually does nothing of the sort. Corn ethanol takes the same amount of energy to produce as it yields. It takes 1 gallon of gasoline to produce 1.3 gallons of corn ethanol, but corn ethanol is about 30% less efficient than gasoline. On top of that, ethanol costs more than gas, and it further limits our supply of corn and drives up the price of food and corn fed beef. We should just use the gas we are using to make ethanol and deploy all the capital goods (and labor) used in ethanol production into profitable areas of the economy. Instead, we're funding a boondoggle, which is nothing more than digging a hole, filling it with money and gasoline, burning it and filling it in again.

Multiply this example a thousand times and you have the policy of our federal government. Is it any wonder our economy is in a slump and getting worse? What's more, our country is already about twelve trillion dollars in debt; and they are resorting to nothing more than the printing press for these bailouts and spending bills. This is business as usual in Washington. Giving a politician a blank check and telling him to pencil in his dream number is a disaster. Telling him it's the only way to fix the economy is insane.

Beyond the fairy tale of The Spending Multiplier, there is something ominously wrong with all of this. Let's say that the government didn't build the bridge, and ten men at a factory got the ten dollars in their check. Maybe they didn't spend it at all, but saved it. Maybe one of them had an idea for an electric car, and he went to the other nine to invest in it. Maybe the ten men started a business, got investors and built a factory manufacturing electric cars. Maybe they got rich, and we achieved energy independence.

But the government did build the bridge, and ten other men got the ten dollars and consumed it like the government wanted. The man in the factory had his idea, but he couldn't get any investors because the government was too busy using capital to build bridges. Maybe you would have liked to invest in his car, but you couldn't. You didn't have any money because you're in twelve trillion dollars worth of debt. You didn't even want the bridge, anyway. It's way on the other side of town.

Maybe the government stops building bridges and starts propping up banks, corporations and people that you would not invest in when you had a choice. Maybe you wake up one day and realize that you're working for the government four months out of the year already, and now it's deciding where your savings go. A few months go by and the government just starts running the printing press, literally stealing your savings through inflation so it can spend another trillion on more government boondoggles. Maybe your investments and retirement accounts dry up. Maybe you don't fully understand what's going on because your king is either lying or delusional, and he gets on TV and gives stirring speeches that make you want to "believe." Maybe by taking what you've worked for, which represents your labor and time; and forcing you to invest in what you would not invest in on your own, the government is actually telling you that they own your life.

Maybe you live in the United States in 2009.

Posted 02/20/09 Mike Roux Rock Hill, SC

Thank you for this. There is really no other comment I could add.

Posted 02/20/09 bert zamichow Holland, OH

fucking-A

Posted 02/20/09 Mike in Virginia Fredericksburg, VA

Excellent piece. Your comment that "governments throughout the history of mankind have proven to be terrible at deploying capital and allocating resources," made me think of a brilliant French movie from the 1990s called "Ridicule." It was set in the court of Louis XVI. A minor nobleman from the provinces comes to the court to ask the king to fund a project to drain a disease-ridden swamp that is causing many deaths among his people. He finds that the king awards funding for projects based on how witty the supplicant is in the parlor and at dinner parties, and not on the nature of the project. Insane, yes, but probably no more so than allocating funds based purely on political pull.

Posted by JohnF on 11/24/08
Last updated 12/07/08

We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.

But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.

Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?

If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all. -The Law, Frederic Bastiat

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. -The Declaration of Indepedence

The greatest tragedy perpetrated on mankind by The State is the expropriation of the right of life from individuals to The State itself. Notice that Bastiat was not speaking of The State in the above quote, but THE LAW. The State seems to have derived a fallacious conclusion from Bastiat's words. Namely, that since The State has been entrusted with executing The Law, The State must be preserved at all costs; and that The State has the same inate, instinctive right to survive and protect itself at all costs as man himself. The most insidious fallacy is one which seems perfectly reasonable on its face.

On the contrary, Bastiat and Jefferson are clearly stating that man's individual rights trump the rights of The State. Law exists naturally, apart from a system. It is not derived from The State, The State has been derived from The Law.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington

Remember when I said "The government makes laws that make what the banks do perfectly legal and legitimate"? It's no wonder that The State is in bed with bankers. Money is power, and The State is in the power business. Why? Once again, O'brien can sum it up better than I can.

You are thinking, that my face is old and tired. You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not understand that the individual is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. Do you die when you cut your fingernails? We are the priests of power. God is power, but at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: "Freedom is Slavery". Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone -- free -- the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter -- external reality, as you would call it -- is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute.

O'Brien represents The State in George Orwell's classic novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Above, we see the philosophy of Statism. We can also begin to see where the aims of The State and The Bank converge and coalesce into a single, totalitarian abomination. Statism is defined as "the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty." Notable statists are Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Karl Marx, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, John McCain and Barack Obama.

This idea is sometimes called mercantilism, socialism, fascism, communism, marxism or neo-conservatism, but these are merely brand names for the same philosophy. Get out of the habit of calling it by a brand name. This validates it as a legitimate idea, which it is not. The world has validated the principles of liberty, while the horrific principles of The State only fail. We should not allow The State to present their ideas to us time and time again simply because it has come up with a new name for them.

The dictionary defines war in many ways, but it is best described in one word: struggle. War is the heart, the blood, the brain, and the stomach of Statism. War reminds us why we have The State. It justifies The State's existence in the eyes of men. The State loves war so much that it delights in nothing more than an eternal struggle with an amorphous enemy which can never be defeated.

The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected. - Sun Tzu

Notice what Sun Tzu says here. He does not say "War is of vital importance to the state." On the contrary, what is important is not to war, but to know how best to war. This is because:

The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities... It is best to win without fighting.

and:

There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.

Perhaps this is why our Constitution tells us that:

[The Congress shall have Power] To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. -Sun Tzu

This serves The State's purposes because war naturally consolidates power; and once The State holds power, it is loathe to relinquish it. This is not how best to war. The State has tricked us. Throughout the life of an individual, there are many personal struggles which will never be resolved. We understand this all too well, and The State uses our own human nature to subvert those personal struggles to itself. The Art of War teaches us:

What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations.

If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler's bidding.

This shows the dichotomy between an ordinary, personal struggle and national war. The first must be fought, though victory may never be won. The second must be fought, only if a quick victory is assured.

War wastes resources, destroys property, kills people and redistributes wealth. In other words, it violates man's natural rights in every way. It takes a man from his productive activities and tasks him to destroy precious resources and other men who have been taken from their own productive activities. The result is the same as the result of the central bank's inflation. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Where the army is, prices are high; when prices rise the wealth of the people is exhausted. -Sun Tzu

If you want a of picture the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever. -O'Brien

Am I saying that we should all adopt a philosophy of pacifism? Yes and no. Man should always and everywhere be opposed to war. In a free society, there should be absolutely zero tolerance for hawkism and jingoism. These are always the tools of The State and the streamilined men who think in slogans and talk in bullets. I respect liberals who are opposed to war, because it's not easy. In ignorance, people will call any pacifist a coward. Be honest, have you ever done it? This is Statist brainwashing; and by the way, if you think you're not brainwashed...it worked. I respect liberals because I think their heart is in the right place, but I also disagree with the philosophy of total pacifism.

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Lawful defense is the sole just impetus for war, and that only after every attempt at peaceful arbitration has been made. Remember, it is best to win without fighting. This does not mean that we have justification for war with Iraq because a Saudi Arabian terrorist attacked us and Iraq is near Saudi Arabia. Terrorist cells are supra-national organizations, and it is not helpful or useful to declare war against a country or a word to stop them. It is also not helpful to take forces to their homeland, because:

Those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him. -Sun Tzu

Isn't it obvious that our government is not interested in retaliating against those who perpetrated the attacks on the World Trade Center? If they were, they would:

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate. -Sun Tzu

On the contrary, those attacks were just the catalyst The State needed to wage the unending mass murder and destruction of property sometimes called war that it holds so dear to its perpetuity. There is another struggle right now. It's not the struggle between the classes, the races or the political parties. It's the struggle between THE STATE and THE PEOPLE. I'm not going to tell you how to win it. If you've read this, you now possess counter-intelligence. The more you read and learn, the less your adversary will know. Figure out how this affects your life and use it to change things. Opportunities multiply as they are seized. This is the art of war. Remember:

The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

and:

Being unconquerable lies with yourself; being conquerable lies with your enemy.