Liberty/Politics
Liberty/Politics
| Guns and Politics |
I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes. (Who will watch the watchmen.)
circa 128 AD The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle, anywhere, at any time, and with utter recklessness.
The Puppet Masters "1984 - Orwell was only off by a decade or two."
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.
It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remian servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.
No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the first.
The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Historical Review of Pennsyvania A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.
The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force.
"Galt's Speech," Atlas Shrugged It is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind that no nation is to trusted farther than is bound by its interest.
Letter to Henry Laurens, 1778 Constitutions are utterly worthless to restrain the tyranny of government, unless it be understood that the people will by force compel the government to keep within constitutional limits. Practically speaking, no government knows any limits to its power except the endurance of the people.
An Essay on the Trial by Jury, 1852 All restraints upon man's liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree.
An Essay on the Trial by Jury, 1852 The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.
It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law. . . that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts.
The conclusions seem inescapable that in certain circles a tendency has arisen to fear people who fear government. Government, as the Father of Our Country put it so well, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. People who understand history, especially the history of government, do well to fear it. For a people to express openly their fear of those of us who are afraid of tyranny is alarming. Fear of the state is in no sense subversive. It is, to the contrary, the healthiest political philosophy for a free people.
Jeff Cooper's Commentaries, vol. 4, no. 16, December, 1996 If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor. Any alleged "right" of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right. No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as "the right to enslave."
"Man's Rights," The Virtue of Selfishness Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable. A free soc iety will not function or maintain itself unless its members egard it as right that each individual occupy the position that results from his action and except it as due to his own action.
The Constitution of Liberty, 1960 The stateclaims and exercises the monopoly of crime. It forbids private murder, but itself organizes on a colossal scale. It punishes private theft, but itself lays unscupulous hands on anything it wants, whether the property of citizen or alien.
Our Enemy the State, 1935 Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)
The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others.
"The Cashing-In: The Student Rebellion," Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal |
If it were true that a heavy concentration of industry is destructive to
human life, one would find life expectancy declining in the more advanced
countries. But it has been rising steadily. Here are the figures on life
expectancy in the United States:
"The Anti-Industrial Revolution," The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution No people in the world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed, must begin in blood, whatever the answer afterward. If history teaches anything, it teaches that.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
Over himself, over his own mind and body, the individual is sovereign.
On Liberty, 1859
When the fox gnaws -- smile.
Time Enough For Love If pro is the opposite of con, then Congress must be the opposite of Progress.
The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with the power to endanger the public liberty.
(1772) I have never been so well pleased, as when I could shift power from my own, on the sholders of others; nor have I ever been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.
letter to Monsieur Destutt de Tracy, January 26, 1811, reprinted in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, XIII, ed. A. E. Bergh (1853).
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. . . . There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887, reprinted in Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton (1904).
You can only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power--he's free again.
The First Circle (1968). Americans are so enamoured of equality they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
Its Freedom. You just happen to be a powerless slave to it.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex - but Congress can.
If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.
Why are streets always one-way around government buildings? Is this some kind of existential statement?
Second Chance, in Analog, September 1997, p.101. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
The Law 1850 Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
a letter to Benjamin Rush (1800) Every decent man is ashamed of the goverment he lives under.
We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: If a man will not work, he shall not eat.
[E]lections amount to little more than choosing between the scum that floats to the top of the barrel and the dregs that settle to the bottom.
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
I heartily acccept the motto -- "That government is best which governs least": and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe -- "That government is best which governs not at all": and when men are really for it that is the kind of government that they will have.
Government should be weak, amateurish, and ridiculous. At present, it fufills only a third of the role.
Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We're working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we've fallen easy prey to charlatens, quacks, and hustlers.
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
Death and Dr. Hornbook
To a Mouse
Bannockburn
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