Quotes
"Communism was sold to the world as creating a “workers’ paradise.” But lovers of liberty understand that if an idea truly works, it doesn’t need to be advanced at gunpoint." - Lawrence W Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
“We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around.” - Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States
"How rare and refreshing it is for the powerful to understand the limitations of power and actually repudiate its use, in effect giving it back to the individuals who make up society." - Lawrence W Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
“The more the state ‘plans,’ the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.” F.A. Hayek, Austrian Economist
“We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.” - Jesse Owens, 4-time Gold Medal winner at the 1936 Olympics
“Man is not free unless government is limited.” - Ronald Reagan
“(T)he saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time." - early 20th century Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland
“[I stand] for a great cause, the particular essence of which rested on freedom and goodwill—freedom for the fullest possible development of private initiative and industry, as opposed to a system that would give the State control; freedom of career for the development of the individual as opposed to a system which would make for a rigid uniformity in all persons.” -Katharine Atholl, early 20th century Scottish conservative
"The socialist/communist mindset touted by the left perceives highly productive workers as unfair. Under the guise of equality, but fueled instead by envy and coveting, this zero-sum-game mindset believes some have less because of those that have more." - John Henschen
“(S)ocialists don’t like ordinary people choosing, for they might not choose socialism.” - Margaret Thatcher, Former Prime Minister of Great Britain
"Even when the government is elected democratically and acts responsibly, there is still a need to limit the power of society and government; democracy doesn’t equate to self-governance, but governance over every individual by the majority" - John Stuart Mill
"I do not believe that the personal, free, individual character of education can be preserved when you have a federal department laying down standards of education which become more or less mandatory to the whole country.…" -J. Gresham Machen
"A public education that is not faced by such competition of private schools is one of the deadliest enemies to liberty that has ever been devised.…" - J. Gresham Machen
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” -HL Mencken
"Successful geniuses of capital and enterprise ... are viewed with disdain by many in our midst. These critics are the envious, the demagogues, the class warriors, the power lusters, the people who are more eager to steal and redistribute what others create than to bake a bigger pie." - Lawrence Reed, Author & president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE.org)
“Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man.” -Adam Smith, 18th century economist & Enlightenment philosopher
"Successful geniuses of capital and enterprise like George Eastman are viewed with disdain by many in our midst. These critics are the envious, the demagogues, the class warriors, the power lusters, the people who are more eager to steal and redistribute what others create than to bake a bigger pie." - Lawrence Reed
“The philosophies of perpetual grievance that dominate campus discourse insist that we must look at our cultural heritage as the sum total of its faults, reducing every moment of our history to a Hegelian relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed.” - Nate Hochman
“The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance” -Barry Goldwater, 1964 Republican Presidential nominee
“The Left segregates us into (oppressed vs oppressor) groups and turned us against one another … then the government is supposed to impose equality and justice on us. This is what Leftism means: more government, more top-down (control), less individuality, less community. Leftism is a form of slavery.”
"Multiculturalism and Political Correctness are different sides of the same coin. Multiculturalism is the side where we look for the victims. Political Correctness is the side where we find the victimizers.” -Peter Thiel, American Entrepreneur
“Conservativism [the right] wants small government, so that individual liberty can flourish. The left wants the resources of the individual and industry in the service of a centralized state.” – Dinesh D’Sousa, author and film maker
“The moral issue with the state is that it involves using man as a means for the ends of others instead of regarding each man as an end in himself.” - 18th Century Philosopher Emmanuel Kant
"(It's not) government’s function to make war on people over their personal, private, and peaceful choices. As long as we do no harm to others, each of us possesses an inherent, natural right to our own lives and property—and that includes our bodies." - Lawrence W Reed
"The New Deal, was a “political racket,” a “series of stupendous bogus miracles,” with its “constant appeals to class envy and hatred,” treating government as “a milch cow with 125 million teats. And, I might add, it didn’t cure the Great Depression; it prolonged it by at least seven years." - H.L. Mencken
"If you have confidence that you are right you never seek to silence your opponent." - Anonymous
"The Constitution was crafted as a contract between the American government & its people which promised to uphold individual liberty & rights. The Left argue that the constitution is a living document that can be adjusted over time, but as is the case for any contract, the terms and content cannot be arbitrarily changed by the whims of those wishing to do so." - Pastpatriot
“If the Government takes into its hands that which the man ought to do for himself it will inflict upon him greater mischiefs than all the benefits he will have received or all the advantages that would accrue from them.” - William Ewart Gladstone, 19th century British Prime Minister
"There is just one life for each of us: our own." - Euripedes, 4th century Greek Playwright
“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers (government officials) are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”
“Government cannot satisfy one party without adding to the labor of the others...(it) is the great fiction through which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else.”
“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.”
- Frederic Bastiat, French Political philosopher & economist
“Government cannot satisfy one party without adding to the labor of the others...(it) is the great fiction through which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else.”
“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.”
- Frederic Bastiat, French Political philosopher & economist
"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away (through government interventions), for expedients, and by parts.” - Edmund Burke, 18th century Enlightenment philosopher
“The rights of individuals ought to be the primary object of all government." - Mercy Owens Warren, pre-revolutionary War female advocate for individual liberty
"(T)he “invisible hand” of free prices, competitive markets, and self-interest (properly understood) yields far more economic good for society than the “iron fist” of rulers and their bureaucracies."
"Ideas really do matter. They can change the world."
- Lawrence Reed summarizing Adam Smith’s core idea of economic liberty, president for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
"Ideas really do matter. They can change the world."
- Lawrence Reed summarizing Adam Smith’s core idea of economic liberty, president for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
“(C)entral planners” are dangerous fools armed with a “pretense of knowledge.” -F. A. Hayek
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.” - Groucho
“The chief purpose in the establishment of states and constitutional orders was that individual property rights might be secured.… It is the peculiar function of state and city to guarantee to every man the free and undisturbed control of his own property.” - Marcus Tulles Cicero, Roman orator & statesman
"Postmodernism, as a philosophy and as an intellectual movement, is characterized by strong skepticism and subjectivism, and consequently by ethical relativism. In social philosophy, it combines collectivism with a zero-sum view of human relations.” -Dr. Stephen Hicks
"(the Regressive Left) is an illiberal authoritarian ideology rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxism that supports censorship, condones violence in response to speech, is obsessed with identity politics... and functions like a secular religion that gives its believers a sense of moral self-worth." -Keri Smith
"Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears." - Ayn Rand, 20th century American philosopher & author
"You are either for the individual & freedom or the group & state power." - Dave Rubin
“Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion” - Maggie VandenBurghe Millennial Conservative Filmmaker, Director, Producer, & Actor
"Group Identity distracts us from individual merit." - Adam Toomey
“Equality before the general rules of law is the only kind of equality conducive to liberty that can be secured without destroying liberty.” - Dr. Walter Williams, American Economist & Educator
"Arbitrary power is more easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness." - George Washington, May 9, 1753
"The secret to happiness is freedom and the secret to freedom is courage." - Thucydides, Ancient Greek historian & general
"The battle for freedom must be won over and over again. The socialists in all parties ... must once again be persuaded or defeated if they and we are to remain free men." - Milton Friedman, American Historian & Economist
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.
"We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork." - Milton Friedman, American Economist & Historian
"The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop." - P.J. O'Rourke
"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave." Thomas Jefferson, American Founding Father
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." - Ayn Rand, American Philosopher
(S)ince 1959, Cuba has gone from being one of the most developed countries in Latin America to a low-rent tourist destination famous for child prostitution, crime, poverty and political prisoners. Communists did this in the name of equality. - Mary Anastasia O’Grady
“Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.” - from 1984 by George Orwell referring to the nihilistic philosophy of the statist party in control of the dystopian future
Capitalism encourages people to start a business and build a better life for themselves while socialism lays in wait with IRS agents, nooses made of red tape and meddling bureaucrats looking for businesses to control and loot.
“Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own.” -Milton Friedman, Historian & Economist
“A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." - F.A. Hayek, Economist & Historian
“When government – in pursuit of good intentions – tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost comes in inefficiency, lack of motivation and loss of freedom.” -Milton Friedman, Historian & Economist
"Conservatism (the Right) wants a small government, so that individual liberty can flourish. The Left wants the resources of the individual and industry in the service of a centralized state." - Dinesh D'Sousa, author & film-maker
(T)he U.S. media are disaster pornographers—they work too much on triggering their audiences’ emotions. - Dr. Arash Javanbakht, psychiatrist & neuroscientist
“Only individuals can learn. Only individuals can think creatively... Only individuals can cooperate. Only individuals can combat statism.”- Leonard Read, Founder of the Foundation for Economic Education
"The free market is that which prevails when all exchanges are free of coercion; it is willing exchange only, that is, freedom in transactions." - Leonard Read, Founder of the Foundation for Economic Education
"Freedom of speech is a pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins." - Founding Father & Scientist, Benjamin Franklin
"To achieve equity, its cardinal virtue, socialist regimes seize productive property and allocate resources through a command structure rather than the market. Price signals are suppressed and the individual desires they represent are subordinated to the larger central plan. Human beings are reduced to pieces on the government planner’s chessboard, their talents and aspirations restricted for the “greater good.” But who defines that? The planners at the top, of course." —Erik Halvorson, Hillsdale College, economics
"Of all the means by which a government can stimulate production, there is none so powerful as the perfect security of person and property, especially from the aggressions of arbitrary power. This security is itself a source of public prosperity"- early 19th century French political economist, Jean Baptiste Say
“The right of property…[is] the most powerful of all encouragements to the multiplication of wealth.” - early 19th century French political economist, Jean Baptiste Say
“There is getting to be so much public right, that private right is overshadowed and lost…danger exists that the ends of liberty will be forgotten.” -19th century American author, James Fenimore Cooper
“The right of property…[is] the most powerful of all encouragements to the multiplication of wealth.” - early 19th century French political economist, Jean Baptiste Say
“There is getting to be so much public right, that private right is overshadowed and lost…danger exists that the ends of liberty will be forgotten.” -19th century American author, James Fenimore Cooper
Collectivism: the practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it
Individualism: a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control
Individualism: a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control
- California spends about $98.5 billion annually on welfare--the most in the US—but has the highest poverty rate in America.
- California has the highest income tax rate in the US, at 13.3 percent, but the fourth greatest income inequality of the 50 states.
- California has one of the most regulated housing markets in America, yet it has the highest homeless population in American and ranks 49th (per capita) in housing supply.
"Speech is about the only thing socialists don't think should be free." - Matt Kibbe, Freedomworks
"It is certain that many intellectuals envy the income of prosperous businessmen and that these feelings drive them toward socialism." Ludwig von Mises, Economist & Historian
"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." - Dr. Thomas Sowell, Economist at the Hoover Institution
"Individualism... is a cultural, rather than political, entity. It is the dividend of Western politics and economics, which give freedom in the abstract and concrete sense to individuals and in the process foster personal curiosity and initiative unknown among societies where there are no true citizens and neither government nor markets are free." - Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Institution
"The main vice of Capitalism is the uneven distribution of wealth. The main vice of Socialism is the even distribution of misery." - Winston Churchill, English Statesman
"The great hatred of capitalism in the hearts of the oppressed, ancient and modern, I think, stems not merely from the ensuing vast inequality in wealth, and the often unfair and arbitrary nature of who profits and who suffers, but from the silent acknowledgment that under a free market economy the many victims of the greed of the few are still better off than those under the utopian socialism of the well-intended." - Dr. Victor Davis Hanson
"The role of the federal government was always intended to be limited, only interfering with local decisions in defense of individual rights. In other cases, it's best to let communities, made up of those individuals, decide how to handle their own problems, because they are the ones best suited to understand those problems and proposed solutions." - Senator Mike Lee
"The role of the federal government was always intended to be limited, only interfering with local decisions in defense of individual rights. In other cases, it's best to let communities, made up of those individuals, decide how to handle their own problems, because they are the ones best suited to understand those problems and proposed solutions." - Senator Mike Lee
"The most important fact about a Free Market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit." - Milton Friedman
"(B)eginning with the Greeks, Western culture has shown a singular propensity to think abstractly, to debate knowledge freely apart from religion and politics, and to devise ways of adapting theoretical breakthroughs for practical use, through the marriage of freedom and capitalism." - Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, Classics Professor, Hoover Institute at Stanford University
“It is a healthy civil society, not the state, that civilizes people.” Jonah Goldberg, Author
"Victim status has become a prized status in our society. It’s a base from which to launch assaults on the dignity and equanimity of others when the need arises. It’s also a defense against such assaults, which can land on anybody at any time."-
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
“Liberals” (leftists), who in knee-jerk fashion support politically correct positions ... seem not to be driven by thought and reflection; instead they “parrot left-wing orthodoxy, in the manner of a scripted character.”
"To be free is to have achieved your life." - Tennessee Williams, American Playwright
“The legitimate functions of government are actually conducive to freedom. Maintaining internal order, keeping foreign foes at bay, administering justice, removing obstacles to the free interchange of goods—the exercise of these powers makes it possible for men to follow their chosen pursuits with maximum freedom. But note that the very instrument by which these desirable ends are achieved can be the instrument for achieving undesirable ends—that government can, instead of extending freedom, restrict freedom.”
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
-Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964 Republican Presidential nominee
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
-Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964 Republican Presidential nominee
“If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be.” - Founding Father & President Thomas Jefferson
…A longitudinal study of more than 16,000 people in the UK found that… “Children who showed higher levels of conduct problems—that is, aggression, fighting, stealing from peers—were more likely to be economically left-leaning.”
Libertarians measure as being the most analytical political group.
Clever children will probably grow up to have free-market economic views, according to new academic research. The direct link between intelligence and economic conservatism holds true even if the self-interest that high earners have in a lower-tax, free-market economy is taken into account.
liberal political beliefs, not conservative ones, are actually linked to psychoticism.
- Daniel J Mitchell, Washington-based economist (sourced article on study of psychological character differences based on political tendencies)
Libertarians measure as being the most analytical political group.
Clever children will probably grow up to have free-market economic views, according to new academic research. The direct link between intelligence and economic conservatism holds true even if the self-interest that high earners have in a lower-tax, free-market economy is taken into account.
liberal political beliefs, not conservative ones, are actually linked to psychoticism.
- Daniel J Mitchell, Washington-based economist (sourced article on study of psychological character differences based on political tendencies)
"Life without liberty is like a body without spirit." - Khalil Gibran
"Resentment is at work when one so hates somebody for his more favorable circumstances that one is prepared to bear heavy losses if only the hated one might also come to harm. Many of those who attack capitalism know very well that their situation under any other economic system will be less favorable. Nevertheless, with full knowledge of this fact, they advocate a reform, e.g., socialism, because they hope that the rich, whom they envy, will also suffer under it." - Dr. Ludwig Von Mises, Economist, Author & Historian
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule it." - H.L. Mencken, Early 20th Century Journalist and Essayist
"There are many social ills taking place in the academy, but one crucial manifest destiny of the cognoscenti (learned elites) who rule its turf is the abolition of reason, rational argumentation, appeal to traditional canonical texts as evidence for objective truths about our world, and belief in an objective reality. Reason... is ridiculed, dismissed, and targeted as a Eurocentric creation that has been used to justify colonialism, slavery, and genocide of native peoples."
"(T)oday’s scholars in the humanities are increasingly dispensing with (reason-based) argumentation while declaring vehemently via contorted fallacious argumentation that the modern form of argumentation is a white Western Eurocentric form of domination and linguistic imperialism that silences racial and gendered and ethnic minorities"
"Identity politics, victimology, and multiculturalism have reached such astronomical heights in the university that not only are canonical texts being discarded, but trigger warnings are being issued in many universities for students who feel oppressed and traumatized that they have to read texts written by dead or white living men."
"The manifest destiny of the humanities and social science professoriat (in higher education) is to have politicized knowledge, (to) supersede truth, objectivity, facts, and genuine learning."
"I am an advocate of reason, capitalism, rugged individualism, and self-reliance."
- Dr. Jason D. Hill, American Philosopher & Author of "We Have Overcome: An Immigrant's Letter to the American People"
"(T)oday’s scholars in the humanities are increasingly dispensing with (reason-based) argumentation while declaring vehemently via contorted fallacious argumentation that the modern form of argumentation is a white Western Eurocentric form of domination and linguistic imperialism that silences racial and gendered and ethnic minorities"
"Identity politics, victimology, and multiculturalism have reached such astronomical heights in the university that not only are canonical texts being discarded, but trigger warnings are being issued in many universities for students who feel oppressed and traumatized that they have to read texts written by dead or white living men."
"The manifest destiny of the humanities and social science professoriat (in higher education) is to have politicized knowledge, (to) supersede truth, objectivity, facts, and genuine learning."
"I am an advocate of reason, capitalism, rugged individualism, and self-reliance."
- Dr. Jason D. Hill, American Philosopher & Author of "We Have Overcome: An Immigrant's Letter to the American People"
"America works! She works for all her people on the most general level because of this all-pervasive commitment to individualism and to the individual as an individual."- Dr. Jason D. Hill, American Author & Philosopher
"From the first dawn of the Revolution I have been ever on the side of liberty and my country." - Patriot General Francis Nash's dying words after being mortally wounded by a British canon ball during the Battle of Germantown, 1777
"Americans are the first individualists and, by design, the first nontribal people in the world." - Dr. Jason D. Hill, American Author & Philosopher
"To lay down... limits to the action of the government; to confer certain rights on private persons, and to secure to them the undisputed enjoyment of those rights... [are] the main objects."
"It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority... averts all dangers from my path... if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."
"The Federal Constitution... disavowed beforehand the habitual use of compulsion in enforcing the decisions of the majority."
"True friends of liberty... ought constantly to be on the alert to prevent the power of government from lightly sacrificing the private rights of individuals to the general execution of its designs. At such times no citizen is so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed; no private rights are so unimportant that they can be surrendered with impunity to the caprices of a government... [because] men accustom themselves to sacrifice private interest without scruple and to trample on the rights of individuals in order more speedily to accomplish any public purpose."
-Alexis de Tocqueville, 19th Century French Political Philosopher
"It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority... averts all dangers from my path... if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."
"The Federal Constitution... disavowed beforehand the habitual use of compulsion in enforcing the decisions of the majority."
"True friends of liberty... ought constantly to be on the alert to prevent the power of government from lightly sacrificing the private rights of individuals to the general execution of its designs. At such times no citizen is so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed; no private rights are so unimportant that they can be surrendered with impunity to the caprices of a government... [because] men accustom themselves to sacrifice private interest without scruple and to trample on the rights of individuals in order more speedily to accomplish any public purpose."
-Alexis de Tocqueville, 19th Century French Political Philosopher
"Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority."
"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business."
"The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world."
"The frustrated, oppressed by their shortcomings, blame their failure on existing restraints. Actually, their innermost desire is for an end to the 'free for all.' They want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society."
- Eric Hoffer, 20th Century American Philosopher
"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business."
"The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world."
"The frustrated, oppressed by their shortcomings, blame their failure on existing restraints. Actually, their innermost desire is for an end to the 'free for all.' They want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society."
- Eric Hoffer, 20th Century American Philosopher
"(A)ny power exercised by the federal government that is not among those delegated in the Constitution is power exercised without the consent of the governed." - American Author Tom Mullen on the interpretation of Article V of the U.S. Constitution
“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves.., is sinful and tyrannical.“ -Thomas Jefferson, 1779
“The most natural privilege of man, next to the right of acting for himself, is that of combining his exertions with those of his fellow creatures and of acting in common with them. The right of association therefore appears to me almost as inalienable in its nature as the right of personal liberty. No legislator can attack it without impairing the foundations of society.” - Alexis de Tocqueville, 19th century French political observer and philosopher
"The pathology of Western intellectuals has committed socialism to an adversarial relationship with the culture—free markets and individual rights—that has produced the greatest alleviation of suffering; the greatest liberation from want, ignorance, and superstition; and the greatest increase of bounty and opportunity in the history of all human life."
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"No cause, ever, in the history of all mankind, has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than socialism with power."
-University of Pennsylvania history professor Alan Charles Kors
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"No cause, ever, in the history of all mankind, has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than socialism with power."
-University of Pennsylvania history professor Alan Charles Kors
"Big business, the target of the most fanatic attacks by the so-called leftists, produces almost exclusively to satisfy the wants of the masses. Enterprises producing luxury goods solely for the well-to-do can never attain the magnitude of big businesses."
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"The development of capitalism consists in everyone’s having the right to serve the customer better and/or more cheaply."
-Ludwig Von Mises, Historian & Economist
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"The development of capitalism consists in everyone’s having the right to serve the customer better and/or more cheaply."
-Ludwig Von Mises, Historian & Economist
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery except for those running the government." - Winston Churchill
“The state...has not given me anything that it did not first extort from me.”
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“No person is so grand or wise or perfect as to be the master of another person.”
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“Government never has and never can humanely and effectively manage men’s affairs.”
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“Will men continue to submit to rule by politics, which has always meant the power of some men over other men?”
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“Each man is the absolute owner of his life, to use and dispose of as he sees fit.”
-Karl Hess, 20th Century American Political Philosopher
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“No person is so grand or wise or perfect as to be the master of another person.”
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“Government never has and never can humanely and effectively manage men’s affairs.”
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“Will men continue to submit to rule by politics, which has always meant the power of some men over other men?”
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“Each man is the absolute owner of his life, to use and dispose of as he sees fit.”
-Karl Hess, 20th Century American Political Philosopher
The Silver Rule (of liberty): Silver Rule says Do not treat others the way you would not like them to treat you... it tells you to mind your own business and not decide what is 'good' for others.
“Coercion is evil precisely because it…eliminates an individual as a thinking and valuing person and makes him a bare tool in the achievement of the ends of another.”
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“Once wide coercive powers are given to government agencies…such powers cannot be effectively controlled.”
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“The argument for liberty is…an argument…against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.”
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“A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.”
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“The system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.”
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“There is no justification for the belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary…it is not the source but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary.”
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“Equality of the general rules of law and conduct…is the only kind of equality conducive to liberty and the only equality which we can secure without destroying liberty.”
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“Under the Rule of Law…the individual is free to pursue his personal ends and desires, certain that the powers of government will not be used deliberately to frustrate his efforts.”- F.A. Hayek, Classical Economist of the Austrian School of economics
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“Once wide coercive powers are given to government agencies…such powers cannot be effectively controlled.”
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“The argument for liberty is…an argument…against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.”
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“A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.”
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“The system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.”
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“There is no justification for the belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary…it is not the source but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary.”
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“Equality of the general rules of law and conduct…is the only kind of equality conducive to liberty and the only equality which we can secure without destroying liberty.”
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“Under the Rule of Law…the individual is free to pursue his personal ends and desires, certain that the powers of government will not be used deliberately to frustrate his efforts.”- F.A. Hayek, Classical Economist of the Austrian School of economics
"(T)he cities most tortured with perpetual incarceration, broken families, perpetual poverty, and hopelessness are the urban centers ruled monolithically by leftists for generations." - David Gornoski, Author
Free Market Economics is “the obvious and simple system of natural liberty.” -Adam Smith, 18th Century Scottish Economist & Enlightenment Philosopher
“When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” – Frederic Bastiat, 19th century French Economist
“[Ideas of perfect equality] are…extremely pernicious to human society. Render possessions ever so equal, men’s different degrees of art, care and industry will immediately break that equality. Or if you check these virtues, you reduce society to the most extreme indigence; and instead of preventing want and beggary in a few, render it unavoidable to the whole community.”- David Hume, Scottish Enlightenment Philosopher (1711-1776)
"Facts" - Dr Thomas Sowell's response to an inquiry as to why he left Socialist/Marxist ideology in his youth.
“We have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious…it might be much simplified to the relief of those who maintain it.”
“The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.”
"The pillars of our prosperity are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.”
- Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson
“The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.”
"The pillars of our prosperity are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.”
- Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson
"Government spending cannot create additional jobs." - Ludwig Von Mises
"The individual who can do something that the world wants will, in the end, make his way regardless of race."
"Our republic is the outgrowth of the desire for liberty that is natural in every human breast…and the most complete guarantee of the safety of life and property."
"Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work."- Booker T. Washington, Black American Intellect & founder of Tuskegee Institute
"Our republic is the outgrowth of the desire for liberty that is natural in every human breast…and the most complete guarantee of the safety of life and property."
"Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work."- Booker T. Washington, Black American Intellect & founder of Tuskegee Institute
"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But, under the name of 'Liberalism', they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform." - Norman Matoon Thomas, Six time Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
"Political Correctness is tyranny with manners."- Charlton Heston
"Collective rights and individual rights cannot coexist. One must always trump the other." - Author Logan Albright
“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” - Sir Winston Churchill
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” - President Ronald Reagan
“Socialism, in general, has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”- Dr. Thomas Sowell
"The 20th century is littered with the failures of socialism. Millions have been either thrust into poverty or held captive to poverty by socialistic governments. But memories are short. " - Author Garland S. Tucker III
"Thanks to John Locke and his brilliant ideas of a system of private property rights, which were codified in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, Americans have the equal opportunity to pursue their own interests and passions and to enjoy the fruits of such pursuit. This pursuit, rather than being a source of inequality, neglect, and exploitation as people like Corbyn, Pope Francis, and Sanders would have us believe, actually facilitates more common good, moral action, equality, opportunity, and prosperity than any economic or cultural system ever tried in the history of the world." - Author Garland S. Tucker III
“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” - Sir Winston Churchill
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” - President Ronald Reagan
“Socialism, in general, has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”- Dr. Thomas Sowell
"The 20th century is littered with the failures of socialism. Millions have been either thrust into poverty or held captive to poverty by socialistic governments. But memories are short. " - Author Garland S. Tucker III
"Thanks to John Locke and his brilliant ideas of a system of private property rights, which were codified in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, Americans have the equal opportunity to pursue their own interests and passions and to enjoy the fruits of such pursuit. This pursuit, rather than being a source of inequality, neglect, and exploitation as people like Corbyn, Pope Francis, and Sanders would have us believe, actually facilitates more common good, moral action, equality, opportunity, and prosperity than any economic or cultural system ever tried in the history of the world." - Author Garland S. Tucker III
"What is so beneficial to the people as liberty...to be preferred to all things."
"Only in states in which the power of the people is supreme has liberty any abode"
"The essence of liberty is to live as you choose."
"The more laws, the less justice."- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE)
"Only in states in which the power of the people is supreme has liberty any abode"
"The essence of liberty is to live as you choose."
"The more laws, the less justice."- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE)
Government social and economic intervention ...'open(s) the door to special-interest-group politics, compulsory income redistribution, union-power blackmail over business, and a general culture of political paternalism.'
"The market is either free or it is under the regulation of the government. Either individuals are free persons who may peacefully go about their lives and associate with others through voluntary exchange, or they are pawns on a political chessboard, open to manipulation and control whenever their actions do not follow what those in power demand.
There is no third way." - Dr. Richard M Ebeling
"The market is either free or it is under the regulation of the government. Either individuals are free persons who may peacefully go about their lives and associate with others through voluntary exchange, or they are pawns on a political chessboard, open to manipulation and control whenever their actions do not follow what those in power demand.
There is no third way." - Dr. Richard M Ebeling
"Whether in its fascist or communist variations, collectivism is a return to justifications for denying the uniqueness, dignity, and liberty of the individual, as well as the abolition of the institutions of a free society that are meant to protect the ordinary human being from domination and control by the State." - Dr. Richard M Ebeling
"The wealth of nations is best secured by allowing every person, as long as he adheres to the rules of justice, to pursue his own interest in his own way." -John Taylor, American Legislator, 1822
"We cannot be happy, without being free…we cannot be free, without being secure in our property…we cannot be secure in our property, if, without our consent, others may... take it away." - Founding Father John Dickinson
“Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us...” - Founding Fathers John Dickinson & Thomas Jefferson
"We cannot be happy, without being free…we cannot be free, without being secure in our property…we cannot be secure in our property, if, without our consent, others may... take it away." - Founding Father John Dickinson
“Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us...” - Founding Fathers John Dickinson & Thomas Jefferson
“I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce and hold it as a truth that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic.” - James Madison, 1789
“The proper role of government is to protect individual rights, not engage in social engineering.” Dr. Yaron Brook
"The vast majority of the human family continues to live under the illusion that giving government more power will magically cure society’s ills." - Jeffrey Tucker, American Author
(U)niversal reason teaches the same political truths to all human beings; that all individuals are by nature “perfectly free” and “perfectly equal”; and that obligation to political institutions arises only from the consent of the individual. - John Locke (Second Treatise on Government - 1689)
A "libertarian" is someone who loves human freedom (which is one and indivisible). Libertarians defend free enterprise, the creative capacity of human beings, and the spontaneous market order. Above all, libertarians abhor the organized, systematic coercion of those monopolistic agencies of violence we know as "states." - Dr. Jesús Huerta de Soto, Spanish Economist
"The state sector produces nothing on its own; it lives off the rest of the society, and thrives on deception." - Jeffrey Tucker, Author
“If everybody thought more of the interests of others than of his own, we should have a chaos of curtsies and retreats…” - Herbert Spencer, Social Philosopher on the harmful effects of unfettered altruism in a society
Postmodern theory “relieves me of the obligation to be right… and demands only that I be interesting.” - Stanley Fish, Prominent Postmodern Theorist on how & why the Post-Modern Left rejects Facts & History
"Government...to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it." -Henry David Thoreau, 19th Century American Philosopher
"As with most of society's ailments, the problem of poverty can be traced directly to the state." - Liam Cardenas
"(G)overnment can’t create wealth by mandate. If it could, why doesn’t it reach all the objectives of a minimum wage in one fell swoop and enact a minimum of $100 an hour? It can’t. " - Doug Thorburn, Author and Researcher
"A state seeking to provide for more...will inevitably destroy...freedom" - Wilhelm Von Humboldt, 18th Century German Intellectual
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents” - James Madison, Father of the American Constitution (warning of the welfare state)
"The state is not the answer at all, but the cruelest possible monster that masquerades as the solution to the problems of its own making." -Jeffrey A. Tucker, American Author
"The term patriotism originally meant not loyalty to a cause of separation from Britain but to the very ideas of liberty." - Robin Koerner, American Author
"The Declaration of Independence was the product of the kind of independence on which all political and cultural freedom ultimately depends – an independence of mind. That is the fundamental independence that only an individual can assert." - Robin Koerner, American Author
"When the state gives you something, you should realize it comes at someone else's expense." - Lawrence W. Reed, President of the Foundation for Economic Education
"The whole point of freedom is to discover new ways of serving each other in a voluntary society." (as opposed to Government central planning) - Jeffrey Tucker, American Author
“I would rather roam and idle about in a muddy ditch, at my own amusement, than to be put under the restraints that the ruler would impose.” -Chuang Tzu 4th century B.C. Chinese Author
“****I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents” - James Madison, Father of the Constitution (commenting on taxes for public welfare).
"The socialist left doesn’t understand that the capital accumulated by capitalists redounds to the benefit of labor, because capital investment increases the productivity of labor, and so leads to a continual rise of real wages." - Dan Sanchez
"(T)he socialist left doesn’t realize all the myriad ways in which taxes, regulation, and the welfare state impoverish and debilitate everybody, including college kids, and especially the poor." - Dan Sanchez
"(T)he socialist left doesn’t realize all the myriad ways in which taxes, regulation, and the welfare state impoverish and debilitate everybody, including college kids, and especially the poor." - Dan Sanchez
"(I)ntegrity is not negotiable; never stop learning; cling to the aspirations of the Declaration of Independence and defend the restraints of the Constitution; salute the flag; and pass along these values to the next generation." - David Epstein, American Author
"(J)ust ask the average American to define capitalism and listen to them describe almost the exact opposite." - Mark Cavaliere, American Author
“It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy. What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it from them with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a way in which we have some advantage.” - Adam Smith, 18th century Scottish Economist & Enlightenment Philosopher
"It is freedom, not planning, that gives life to society and prosperity." - Jeffrey A Tucker, American Journalist
"We have government OF the people, BY the bureaucrats, FOR the bureaucrats." - Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize Winning Economist
"The core argument against taxation should always be about freedom." - John Tamny, American Journalist
"(F)reedom and peace serve the common good better than violence and state control, thus suggesting a normative rule: societies and individuals must be left unmolested in their associations and commercial dealings so long as they are not threatening others." -Jeffrey A. Tucker, American Author
"(I)t’s absurd to equate compassion and virtue with government-coerced redistribution."- Daniel Mitchell, Economist
"(T)he best possible world for us comes through voluntary action within a social setting we create for ourselves, and not from the imposition of someone else’s plan from the top down." -Jeffrey Tucker (American Author & Journalist)
"(The solution to the health care crisis) " is a complete separation of the state and the health care industry. Only free markets can provide the cheapest and highest quality health care to the largest amount of people." - Nathan Keeble, American Journalist
"Government interventions necessitate more and more interventions to fix the problems they create. " -Ludwig Von Mises
"There was a time when the West knew what it was about. It did so because it thought about itself—often in freshman Western Civ classes. It understood that its moral foundations had been laid in Jerusalem; its philosophical ones in Athens; its legal ones in Rome. It treated with reverence concepts of reason and revelation, freedom and responsibility, whose contradictions it learned to harmonize and harness over time. It believed in the excellence of its music and literature, and in the superiority of its political ideals. It was not ashamed of its prosperity." - American Journalist Bret Stephens
“Today the tenets of this nineteenth-century philosophy of liberalism are almost forgotten. In continental Europe it is remembered only by a few. In England the term “liberal” is mostly used to signify a program that only in details differs from the totalitarianism of the socialists. In the United States “liberal” means today a set of ideas and political postulates that in every regard are the opposite of all that liberalism meant to the preceding generations. The American self-styled liberal aims at government omnipotence, is a resolute foe of free enterprise, and advocates all-round planning by the authorities, i.e., socialism.”- economist & philosopher Ludwig Von Mises (1962) on the coopting of the term "liberal" by authoritative statists.
"English laws are on the side of humanity" - 18th century French Philosopher Voltaire commenting on England's 50 year transformation from centralized government control to emphasis on individual freedom during the Age of Enlightenment.
"(T)he doctrine of liberty and limited government..unleashed humanity’s productive powers to the enrichment of all." - Dan Sanchez on the influence of Enlightenment philosopher John Locke.
...the Liberal Party became a non-stop geyser of “social” legislation: fixing prices, regulating working hours, mandating all kinds of inspections, financing public works, restricting “vices,” corralling children into public schools, putting trades under license requirements (including a “Pedlars Act, inflicting penalties for hawking without a certificate”), establishing a state monopoly in telegraphy, and even enacting a “Sea-birds Preservation Act” that ended up harming the fishing industry by causing a “greater mortality of fish.” - English philosopher Hebert Spencer (1880's) lamenting on how the party of central government planners on the left had co-opted the moniker of "liberal"; thus, describing themselves as liberal but enacting illiberal legislation restricting individual freedoms.
“It is a purposeful distortion of facts to blame (individual liberty & free market capitalism) for an alleged materialism. The nineteenth century was not only a century of unprecedented improvement in technical methods of production and in the material well-being of the masses. It did much more than extend the average length of human life. Its scientific and artistic accomplishments are imperishable. It was an age of immortal musicians, writers, poets, painters, and sculptors; it revolutionized philosophy, economics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. And, for the first time in history, it made the great works and the great thoughts accessible to the common man.” - economist & philosopher Ludwig Von Mises
“At its root, being for small government is also being for the individual. I believe your faculty to understand how you want to live, is far better than anyone else telling you how to live your life.” - David Rubin
"Good fiscal policy exists when the private sector grows faster than the public sector, while fiscal ruin is inevitable if government spending grows faster than the productive part of the economy." - Daniel Mitchell (American Economist)
"Socialism is not in the least what is pretends to be. It is not the pioneer of a better and finer world, but the spoiler of what thousands of years of civilization have created. It does not build, it destroys. For destruction is the essence of it. It produces nothing, it only consumes what the social order based on private ownership in the means production has created ... Each step leading towards Socialism must exhaust itself in the destruction of what already exists."- Ludwig Von Mises
Socialism places the collective “good” over the well-being of the individual, meaning that for it to work, there must be a mechanism in place so that the government can “make people with ‘too much’ give up things so that people with ‘too little’ receive those same things.”
“The true remedy for most evils is none other than liberty, unlimited and complete liberty, liberty in every field of human endeavor.” -Gustave de Molinari
“My own basic perspective on the history of man...is to place central importance on the great conflict which is eternally waged between Liberty and Power... I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself (or, with Lord Acton, as the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity. Out of liberty, then, stem the glories of civilized life.” -Dr. Murray Rothbard
"(Central) economic planning is nothing more than forcible superseding of someone else's plan by the powerful elite." -Dr. Walter Williams
“…[A]llowing everyone to pursue all the opportunities they can in the marketplace, with the minimal level of taxation and regulation, will create generalized prosperity. The value of cutting taxes is not just cutting them for higher income groups, but for everyone. Letting everyone keep more of the value they create through exchange means that everyone has more incentive to create such value in the first place, whether it’s through the ownership of capital or finding new uses for one’s labor.” - Steve Horwitz, American Economist
"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. 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.” -Frédéric Bastiat
“Tariffs are taxes used to subsidize people (companies & industries) that cannot compete (in the market).”-Dr. Yaron Brook
"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. 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.” -Frédéric Bastiat
“Tariffs are taxes used to subsidize people (companies & industries) that cannot compete (in the market).”-Dr. Yaron Brook
"The natural progress of things is for the government to gain ground and for liberty to yield." - Thomas Jefferson
“The policy to pursue, therefore, is to follow the course of nature, without pretending to direct it. For, in order to direct trade and commerce it would be necessary to be able to have knowledge of all of the variations of needs, interests, and human industry in such detail as is physically impossible to obtain even by the most able, active, and circumstantial government.”
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, 18th Century French Economist
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, 18th Century French Economist
"A revolution is taking place which will leave the people dependent upon the government and place the government where it must decide questions that are far better left to the people to decide for themselves. Finding markets will develop into fixing prices, and finding employment will develop into fixing wages. The next step will be to furnish markets and employment, or in default pay a bounty and dole. Those who look with apprehension on these tendencies do not lack humanity, but are influenced by the belief that the result of such measures will be to deprive the people of character and liberty." - President Calvin Coolidge
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
-John Adams
-John Adams
“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.” - Nobel Prize winning economist, Milton Friedman
"The fact is that the Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy." - Nobel Prize winning economist, Milton Friedman
"if we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy." - Thomas Jefferson, November 29, 1802
“A government with the policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured of the support of Paul.” - George Bernard Shaw
“For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” – British Prime Minister and Historian, Winston Churchill
“The only thing liberal about the "modern (left) liberal" is how freely they spend other people's money" - Dr. Milton Friedman
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money." - Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister