
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss. Robert A. Heinlein The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

...the socialist idea is nothing but a grandiose rationalization of petty resentments Ludwig von Mises Socialism

Cultures are not museum pieces. They are the working machinery of everyday life. Unlike objects of aesthetic contemplation, working machinery is judged by how well it works, compared to the alternatives. Thomas Sowell 'Conquests & Cultures'

The ghastly thing about postal strikes is that after they are over, the service returns to normal. Richard Needham

In the ideal socialist state, power will not attract power freaks. People who make decisions will show not the slightest bias towards their own interests. There will be no way for a clever man to bend the institutions to serve his own ends. And the rivers will run uphill. David Friedman

Puritanism – the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy. H. L. Mencken

Man will not be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. Denis Diderot A FARK.com post

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. Thomas Jefferson

While mere politicians, in their narrow minds, are sweating and fuming with their complicated statutes, this one single rule, rationally construed and applied, is enough to form the starting point of all that is necessary in government: to make no more laws than those useful for preventing a man or body of men from infringing on the rights of other men. Walt Whitman Whitman's "Duties of Government:" http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Whitman.html

Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. Thomas Jefferson Letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas, Sept. 7, 1803

Those who trade essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin

If slavery were the real issue, then slavery among flesh-and-blood human beings alive today would arouse far more outcry than past slavery among people who are long dead. The difference is that past slavery can be cashed in for political benefits today. Thomas Sowell

...no nation ever lost its liberty, but by the force of foreign invaders, or the domestic treachery of its own magistrates... Cato's Letters http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Cato.html

Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair. H. L. Mencken http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Mencken.html

[Government's] great contribution to human wisdom...is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket. H. L. Mencken http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Mencken.html

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, criminal, grasping, and unintelligent. H. L. Mencken http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Mencken.html

...the state...has not given me anything that it did not first extort from me. Karl Hess http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Karl_Hess.html

The Declaration of Independence is so lucid we're afraid of it today. It scares the hell out of every modern bureaucrat, because it tells them there comes a time when we must stop taking orders. Karl Hess http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Karl_Hess.html

Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees... Grover Cleveland http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Grover_Cleveland.html

I can find no warrant for such an appropriation [federal aid to drought-stricken Texas farmers] in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit...The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune...Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthen the bond of a common brotherhood.  Grover Cleveland http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Grover_Cleveland.html

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice...moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue. Karl Hess Speech for Barry Goldwater

To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/goethe2.html

That which moves not forward, goes backward. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/goethe2.html

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.  Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire

...danger confronts us...the prevalence of a popular disposition to expect from the operation of the Government especial and direct individual advantages.  Grover Cleveland http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Grover_Cleveland.html

The radical and revolutionary view of the future of nationhood is, logically, that it has no future, only a past—often an exciting one, and usually a historically useful one at some stage. But lines drawn on paper, on the ground or in the stratosphere are clearly insufficient to the future of mankind. Karl Hess http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Karl_Hess.html

In a laissez-faire society, there could exist no public institution with the power to forcefully protect people from themselves. From other people (criminals), yes. From one's own self, no. Karl Hess http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Karl_Hess.html

When you put your faith in big government, you end up an apologist for mass murder. Karl Hess http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Karl_Hess.html

But a government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice . . . Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? Henry David Thoreau http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Thoreau.html

Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience

Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last possible improvement in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer. Will Rogers http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Rogers.html

I don't want to complain, but every time they build a tax structure, the first thing they nail is me. Will Rogers http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Rogers.html

The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected. Will Rogers http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Rogers.html

Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, that don't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous. Will Rogers http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Rogers.html

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. Will Rogers http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Rogers.html

'Tis true that I know much, but I would like to know everything. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Admonish your friends privately, but praise them openly. Publilius Syrus Maxims

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. Jonathan Swift Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves. John Locke Essay on the Human Understanding

Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself. Gotthold Lessing

No nation was ever ruined by trade. Benjamin Franklin Essays

Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing on others, he has a right to do for himself . . . all men have equal rights; but not to equal things. Edmund Burke http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Burke.html

Law and arbitrary power are at eternal enmity. Edmund Burke http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Burke.html

[The marketplace] obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual success. Edmund Burke http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Burke.html

It is a popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. Edmund Burke http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Burke.html

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it. Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire http://www.quotationspage.com

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire http://www.arches.uga.edu/~jpetrie/Voltaire.html

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, not by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. Thomas Paine
|