Quotes

 “(T)hose who see socialism as a counter to the elitism they see in capitalist economies, think again. History teaches that, due to socialism’s centralized nature, there is no place more replete with cronyism than one practicing socialism.” — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“All economies ultimately distribute goods and wealth unequally. For those who can’t stand a capitalist economy where income is largely based on merit, a big government–planned economy doesn’t necessarily result in income parity. It often means that instead of being distributed on merit, income is distributed through the prism of party loyalty and cronyism.” -Senator Rand Paul

“Equality,” in a human context, is a political term: it means equality before the law, the equality of fundamental, inalienable rights which every man possesses by virtue of his birth as a human being, and which may not be infringed or abrogated by man-made institutions, such as titles of nobility or the division of men into castes established by law, with special privileges granted to some and denied to others. The rise of capitalism swept away all castes, including the institutions of aristocracy and of slavery or serfdom.”— The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution by Ayn Rand

“It is not for her flaws that the United States of America is hated, but for her virtues—not for her weaknesses, but for her achievements—not for her failures, but for her success—her magnificent, shining, life-giving success.” - The Objectivist Newsletter, October 1965

“(T)he guiding principle in any attempt to create a world of free men must be this: a policy of freedom for the individual is the only true progressive policy.” - F.A. Hayek, Economist and political philosopher

“Today’s socialists should look harder at what has happened in the past when the rights of the individual are made secondary to the desires of the collective, even in the name of fairness or social welfare.”— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

"Government has three primary functions. (1) It should provide for military defense of the nation. (2) It should enforce contracts between individuals.  (3) It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property."

"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." -Nobel Prize Laureate, Economist Milton Friedman

“Falsehood flies and the truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.” - Jonathan Swift, 18th century English author

"The welfare of the people…has always been the alibi of tyrants…giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.”- Albert Camus, 1957 Nobel Laureate in Literature

“I was mugged by reality.” Emmy Award Winning Investigative reporter, John Stossel, on why he political views shifted to the Right.

“Freedom of thought and freedom of economic initiative are the lynchpins of a prosperous society.” - Jack Kemp

“The question remains, though, whether there are still enough Americans who put their faith in the individual, and in liberty, to ensure that our nation resists the siren call of “free stuff” that socialism offers.” — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

​“In modern societies, freedom and democracy rely on economic liberty. A free economy is nothing more than a system of communication. It simply cannot function without individual rights or a profit motive, which give people an incentive to go to work, an incentive to produce. And it certainly cannot function without the rule of law, without fair and enforceable contracts, without laws that protect property rights and punish fraud.” - President George H. W. Bush

“[ T] he Utopian attempt to realize an ideal state, using a blueprint of society as a whole, is one which demands a strong centralized rule of the few, and which therefore is likely to lead to a dictatorship. . . .” - Karl Popper, Austrian-born British philosopher

​“We’re living through post modern era in which the grand narratives of religion and political ideology have collapsed. In their place have emerged a crusading desire to right perceived wrongs and a weaponization of identity both accelerated by the new forms of social and news media. Narrow sets of interest now dominate the agenda as society becomes more and more tribal.” - Douglas Murray, author

“Their (the collectivistic, statist Left’s) minimal goal is just “to make trouble”—to undercut, to confuse, to demoralize, to destroy. Their ultimate goal is to take over.” — The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution by Ayn Rand

“In the view of the founders, it was only men with sinister motives who hoped to link their fortunes to authority.”  - Allen C. Guelzo, Professor Gettysburg College

“At the bottom of all totalitarian doctrines lies the belief that the rulers are wiser and loftier than their subjects and that they therefore know better what benefits those ruled than they know themselves.” - Ludwig Von Mises, Austrian Economist & Historian

“Medicare for All would make it harder, not easier, to meet the challenges of this (Covid-19) pandemic.  It would leave us tragically unprepared for future public health crises.  It would impose crippling costs on our government and the economy.  And it would make the pain and indignities suffered by Canadians an everyday occurrence (in the United States).” - Sally Pipes, Pacific Research Institute

“Utopian visions are naive because they require a perfect society with perfect leaders. Utopias are dangerous because humankind is not perfect. Indeed, utopias require leaders willing to wield absolute power to conquer man’s true nature, to take and redistribute his property.” — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

​“Medicare for All would make it harder, not easier, to meet the challenges of this (Covid-19) pandemic.  It would leave us tragically unprepared for future public health crises.  It would impose crippling costs on our government and the economy.  And it would make the pain and indignities suffered by Canadians an everyday occurrence (in the United States).” - Sally Pipes, Pacific Research Institute

“Posterity. who are to reap the blessings (of liberty), will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and sufferings of their ancestors.”   - Abigail Adams, 18th Century American Intellectual & 2nd First Lady of America as wife of President John Adams, speaking on the extreme hardships suffered by American Patriots during the latter half of 1776 during the War for Independence.

“(W)e should never forget that the killing fields of Cambodia will stand forever as a grotesque monument to egalitarianism.”— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“True compassion is helping others out of a genuine sense of caring and brotherhood. It is not asking your legislator or congressman to do it for you.” - Lawrence W. Reed

"I still get buzzed when I recall that a majority of Californians looked at what Gavin Newsom allowed while mayor of San Francisco — rampant homelessness, transportation gridlock, failed public projects, a widening income gap, sidewalk needles and human waste — and decided they wanted that for the whole state. They elected him governor in 2018, and now complain California is going to hell.”  - Will Swaim, President of the California Policy Center

If concern with poverty and human suffering were the collectivists’ motive, they would have become champions of capitalism long ago; they would have discovered that it is the only political system capable of producing abundance. But they evaded the evidence as long as they could. When the issue became overwhelmingly clear to the whole world, the collectivists were faced with a choice: either turn to the right, in the name of humanity — or to the left, in the name of dictatorial power. They turned to the left.

“(V)iolence is not an aberration but a necessary tool if you want a society made “equal” by redistribution of wealth and property.” — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“Is there a more devastating example of a utopian plan gone horribly wrong than the Great Leap Forward in 1958? Here was a vision of communist paradise that paved the way to the systematic stripping of every freedom—the freedom of trade, of movement, of association, of speech, of religion—and ultimately the mass killing of tens of millions of ordinary people.” Frank Dikotter, Dutch Historian

“(T)here are more true believers of Marxism at the University of California Berkeley than we had in all of communist Czechoslovakia.”  -Vaclav Klaus. First president of the Czech Republic

“An economy with ‘everything being directed from a single center’ requires totalitarianism as its political system.” — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“When a group of citizens has the power to vote itself other people’s money, that society will certainly fall.” -Past Patriot 

“T)he central idea of collectivism, that the individual is less important than the whole, is entirely consistent with allowing the state to eliminate individuals that are a burden to society." ― from "The Case Against Socialism

“California continues to move from being a civil society to a political society, in which government coercion is the organizing principle.” -Kerry Jackson

“(T)he powers embodied in America’s twenty-first-century democratic government are those that eighteenth-century Americans revolted against to escape”. -Liberty in Peril: Democracy and Power in American History by Randall Holcombe

“Wherever the real power of a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.” - James Madison, Founding Father

“The role of government as [America’s founders] saw it, was to protect the rights of individuals, and the biggest threat to individual liberty was the government itself. So they designed a government with constitutionally limited powers, constrained to carry out only those activities specifically allowed by the Constitution”. -Liberty in Peril: Democracy and Power in American History by Randall Holcombe

“Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible.” - Michael Crichton, Author

"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” - John Adams, Founding Father

“(S)urrendering more and more freedom to the state is something socialism, fascism, and Nazism have in common.”— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

(L)imiting the size of government, the level of taxation, and the level of labor market regulation decreases inequality and increases incomes of the poorest 20 percent at the state level. - Jason Riddle

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” - James Madison, Founding Father 

​(L)imiting the size of government, the level of taxation, and the level of labor market regulation decreases inequality and increases incomes of the poorest 20 percent at the state level. - Jason Riddle

“Complete control of the economy means complete control of all the people participating in that economy.”— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“There are whole disciplines in universities forthrightly hostile towards men. These are the areas of study, dominated by the postmodern/ neo-Marxist claim that Western culture, in particular, is an oppressive structure, created by white men to dominate and exclude women (and other select groups); successful only because of that domination and exclusion.” Excerpted from Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life”

“Scandinavia’s quality of life didn’t spring from leftist policies. It survived them.”  “Indeed, the ‘socialist’ part of those countries that (Socialist) Mr. (Bernie) Sanders’s fans like would be unaffordable without the dynamic capitalist part they dislike.” -The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“(T)he tweed-wearing, armchair-philosophizing, victim-identifying, pity-and-contempt-dispensing social-reformer types frequently did not like the poor, as they claimed. Instead, they just hated the rich.” - Excerpted from Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life”

"Force, ultimately in the form of government brutality, is an essential companion to complete equality. The more “equality” you want, the more force necessary to bring it about." -The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“Businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned merely with profit but also with promoting desirable social ends; that business has a ‘social conscience’ and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination … and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers.” - Milton Friedman, 1976 Nobel Prize winner in Economics

“It isn’t so much socialism that explains Scandinavian success but rather Sweden’s turn away from socialism.”— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“You preachers of equality, the tyrant-mania of impotence clamors thus out of you for equality: your most secret ambitions to be tyrants thus shroud themselves in words of virtue.” - Nietzsche, 19th century German philosopher

 "A government that owns or controls the means of production can only exert that control by limiting the freedom of choice.”— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

"In recent history, the largest genocides have resulted from tyrannical centralized governments yearning for utopian equality for all." - Jon Henschen

“The unavoidable truth is that the socialist Christmas list of welfare programs can only be paid for by massive taxes on everyone, including the middle class and the working class, just like the taxes in Europe and Scandinavia. ”— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

 "Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression." -James Madison, 1788

“In the United States, the top 1 percent of income earners pays nearly 40 percent of the total income tax revenue, and the top 10 percent pays almost 70 percent. Meanwhile the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers paid only 3 percent of federal income tax in 2016.”— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

"It was deceit that killed hundreds of millions of people in the twentieth century. It was deceit that almost doomed civilization itself. It is deceit that still threatens us, most profoundly, today." - Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

“(W)e must get today’s voters, particularly the youth, to love the liberty of voluntary transactions between consenting adults—capitalism—and to fear the coercion of regulated, controlled exchanges that come only when the government consents”
— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“Natural differences between individuals necessarily requires that outcomes be different. This is especially true in economic outcomes as we are individually unique in motivation, creativity, studiousness, perseverance, cognition and so on. To achieve any sort of economic equality of outcome therefore requires the use of external force and coercion."  - Pastpatriot

 “A 70 percent tax bracket would raise very little (if any) revenue, while damaging the economy and sending income and jobs overseas.” Brian Riedl, Policy Analyst
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"Life without liberty is like a body without spirit." - Khalil Gibran

“(S)ocialism, even in its seemingly benign forms, always devolves into state-sponsored violence and why violence is an inevitable consequence of socialism, not merely a historical anomaly.” — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“From envy are born hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused by his prosperity.” - Augustine

“They say the republic dies when the majority discovers it can vote to take other people’s stuff.” - Anonymous

(Envy is) “hatred of a person for possessing a value or virtue one regards as desirable.”..it is “hatred of the good,” Ayn Rand, philosopher & author

“The intermixing of science with politics is a bad combination with a bad history.” - Michael Crichton, American physician & novelist

“I have a passionate love for liberty, law, and respect for rights. Liberty is my foremost passion. But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.” - Alexis de Tocqueville, 19th century French political philosophe

“When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.” -Austin Chase 

“The worst kind of envy shows up when you take action to make sure no one can ever possess what the successful person has because you believe equality in misery is more virtuous than inequality (of economic outcome).”  - Lawrence W. Reed

“When policy is directed toward eliminating income inequality, the unintended consequence is to lessen the incentives that drive the wealth creation that has lifted millions of people out of poverty over the past few centuries.” — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“(T)he motive is envy and its supposed appeasement, is a favorite rhetorical device of politicians.” - Lawrence W. Reed

Quotes/Observations of Socialism's Devastating Effects in the Ancient Incan Empire:
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​"(The) welfare state undermined the motive for charity and any personal sense of responsibility for family or community."

The Inca bureaucracy cast its net over all it ruled and soon transformed them into docile and obedient subjects through a “slow and gradual absorption of the individual into the state . . . until it brought about the loss of personality. Man was made for the state, and not the state for the man.”
- Louis Baudin, French economist & historian commenting on the destructive effects of socialism in the Incan Empire.

The political planners and plunderers of today, like the ancient Inca collectivists of 500 years ago, impose their rule and control through two essential means: “the suppression of private interest as the motive of human actions, and the substitution of "altruism” as the rationale for men’s sacrifices and their loss of freedom to be compelled to serve the collective. -Yves Guyot (1843-1928)

 "The complete subjugation of life to the prescriptions of the law and to officialdom led to extraordinary standardization: identical clothing, identical houses, identical roads . . . As a result of this spirit of standardization, anything the least bit different was looked upon as dangerous and hostile, whether it was the birth of twins or the discovery of a strangely shaped rock. Such things were believed to be manifestations of evil forces hostile to society." -Igor Shafarevich, Author of The Socialism Phenomena (1980) commenting on forced equality in socialist Russia.

Despite the left’s obsession with income inequality, income disparities have not caused a decline in upward mobility. Standards of living have increased for everyone—as have incomes—and mobility, however one measures it, remains robust. Simply put, how much the top 1 percent of the population earns has no bearing on whether the bottom 20 percent can move up.
— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“(Envy)builds nothing up but concentrated state power; it tears everything down from the object of the envy (e.g., the rich) to the very souls of the envious themselves.”  - Lawrence W. Reed

“Capitalism creates wealth. Socialism does not.” — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“The laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other; for envy creates the beginning of strife.” -Democritus, Ancient Greek philosopher

During the 1830’s French intellect Alexis de Tocqueville was famous for providing a sagacious and prophetic analysis of the “American experiment” in liberty. He had this warning of the coming of Welfare State: 

"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, prov­ident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood; it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government will­ingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and sup­plies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures… what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

"Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupe­fies a people, till each nation is re­duced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious ani­mals, of which the government is the shepherd."

“I think … that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” - Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father

“Andy Puzder, the former CEO of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, describes well socialism’s inherent focus on greed. “If you’re in a capitalist economy, the only way you can succeed is by meeting the needs of other people,” he said in a recent interview. “Socialism, on the other hand, focuses you inward. You’re focused on what you can get.” "— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“if you rank ‘countries according to whether they are closer to being a free market economy or whether they’re closer to having a socialist or planned economy’ and based on ‘per capita income,’ you will find a general ‘pattern whereby those having a larger measure of economic freedom find their citizens enjoying a higher standard of living.’”  — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence [sic] of taking care of them, they must become happy.” - Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father

“None of the Marxist regimes around the world has ever had as high a standard of living for working people as there is in many capitalist countries dominated by the free market.” - Dr. Thomas Sowell, U.S. Economist & Political Historian

“Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth cannot be produced by human institutions.” - President Andrew Jackson

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” -Sir Winston  Churchill

“The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity.”

“If one cares about the welfare of the poorest and the most vulnerable, income inequality is not a useful measure. Measures of inequality tell us nothing about the living conditions of the poor, their health and their access to economic opportunity.” — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“The federal government’s most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures.”  - JFK

“Harry Frankfort, a professor at Princeton and the author of On Inequality...Like other critics of the obsession with income inequality, he’s not buying the hysteria. He writes: “Economic equality is not, as such, of any particular moral importance, and economic inequality is not, in itself, morally objectionable.”” — The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“(O)ne of the most common tendencies of human nature is that of placing responsibility on some external agency for sins we have committed or mistakes we have made.” - Dr. Martin Luther King

"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

“Rea Hederman and David Azerrad write at the Heritage Foundation, “Free-market economics is not about dividing up a dwindling pie, but expanding the pie to serve everyone. Those who succeed do not do so at the expense of others.” The purveyors of the dwindling pie zero-sum world inspire the worst in us. If winning in the marketplace requires that someone must suffer a corresponding loss, then the unhealthy tendencies of envy are stirred.”
​— The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“Say what you will about socialism, it always follows a predictable pattern. In an attempt to make something available to everyone, the socialists ensure that it is not available to anyone (except for the politically well-connected).” - The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul

“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.” - President Ronald Reagan

“Socialism, whatever form it may take, only brings economic destruction and worsening of the conditions of human life.”  -Senator Rand Paul

"The history of the Great Crash and subsequent Depression (of the 1930's) provides a sad litany of policy blunders in Washington. Altogether, they needlessly caused and prolonged the pain; roller coaster monetary policy, sky-high tariff hikes, massive tax increases, government-supervised destruction of foodstuffs, gold seizures, price-fixing regulations, soaring deficits and debt, special favors to organized labor that stifled investment and boosted unemployment." - Lawrence W. Reed (Published JAN 2020)

“The Left have successfully cast themselves as the defender of the “little guy” and the oppressed, while convincing us the Right are evil 1%’ers helping out big business and the rich. Thus, they hold the mantle of “victimhood” and can claim sanction, allowing them to get away with nearly any transgression that anyone on the Right would be crucified for. “- Pastpatriot

“(S)ocialism poisons everything it touches.” -Senator Rand Paul

“For humans to flourish, we need the incentives that come with private ownership.” - Howard Baetjer, author of Free Our Markets: A Citizen’s Guide to Essential Economics

“This notion that the children belong to the State, that their education must be provided for by the State in a way that makes for the State’s welfare . . . , is inimical at every step to liberty.” -J. Gresham Machen

“I don’t believe in color, I believe in people.” - Roberto Clemente, Hall of Fame Major League Baseball Player

"I seek opportunity, not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me."

"I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say, “This I have done.”"
- Dean Alfange, author

"The world must never forget this awful chapter in history. Nor should we ever forget that these heinous acts (of murder by Socialist governments) were committed in the name of a system (Socialism) that declared its “solidarity with the working class” and professed its devotion to “the people.” - Ruth Fechter  referring to Socialism in East Europe during the middle part of the 20th century.

"We who embrace liberty don’t believe in shooting people because they don’t conform, and that is ultimately what socialism and communism are all about. We don’t plan other people’s lives, because we’re too busy at the full-time job of reforming and improving our own. We believe in persuasion, not coercion. We solve problems at penpoint, not gunpoint. We’re never so smug in our beliefs that we’re ready to dragoon the rest of society into our schemes." - Lawrence W Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

"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

"I’ve never seen a country develop itself through aid or credit. Countries that have developed—in Europe, America, Japan, Asian countries like Taiwan, Korea and Singapore—have all believed in free markets. There is no mystery there."- Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade (2002)

"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

"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)

“(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

A nation free from plunder (excessive taxation for the purposes of wealth redistribution) is free to prosper.

"And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty."  - Frédéric Bastiat, 19th century economist & political theorist

"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

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

1. California spends about $98.5 billion annually on welfare--the most in the US—but has the highest poverty rate in America.
2. California has the highest income tax rate in the US, at 13.3 percent, but the fourth greatest income inequality of the 50 states.
3. 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 

“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.”

 "Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own."

- Nobel Prize winning Economist Milton Friedman

"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 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

Heavy taxation destroys entrepreneurship. The more money is taxed out of the private sector, the less is available for investment, development, and worker compensation (recall that after Trump’s tax bill was enacted, many businesses raised workers’ wages and offered bonuses) - Dan Mitchell, Economist

 "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.

“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

“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)

"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

"Socialism is not love or kindness or generosity or oceans of delicious lemonade. Socialism is not equality or community. It’s just a way of distributing the control rights over objects." - Jason Brennan, Author

"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."
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- Dr. Jason D. Hill, American Philosopher & Author of "We Have Overcome: An Immigrant's Letter to the American People"

"The California Democratic Party is a long way away from being the sole employer of Californians, but they are already demanding obedience.
What will happen if their dream of expanding the role of government continues to be realized?  A political party demanding loyalty to the party as a condition for doing business is a terrible path to go down. 
What kind of twisted mindset demands obedience from others? A mindset that loves power."
​- Dr. Barry Brownstein, American Professor & Author referring to the California Democrat Party boycott demand of In-N-Out Burger for giving a contribution to the California Republican Party 

"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

"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)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

"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

"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

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

 "(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

"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

"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.

"(T)he Left rejects the natural rights theory of the American Founding at the core of our tradition." - Author Matthew Continetti

"Postmodernism is most easily understood as a toolkit for dismantling the ideologies and institutions of modernism. ...its proponents have impacted many foundational elements of society, rejecting most hierarchies, universalisms, grand narratives, and objective notions of truth, reason, and morality. Reality and society, they say, are social constructs." - Author, Jeffrey Howard

 "...postmodernism is mostly a device for deconstructing culture, not building it, offering us few, if any, answers to the questions about human flourishing or ethics. By destroying social structures, it has removed order, and ....robbed us of the steady groundwork necessary for living meaningfully. We occupy an empty existence, a nihilistic vacuum where no value has a claim to superiority over another. This has heralded in the age of moral relativism, where the only thing that resembles virtue is an amorphous praise of tolerance. - Author, Jeffrey Howard

​"There is no liberty without economic liberty" - UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

"...we’re making your group identity the most important thing about you. I think that’s reprehensible. I think it’s devastating. I think it’s genocidal in its ultimate expression. I think it will bring down our civilization if we pursue it. We shouldn’t be playing that game.” - Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

“There is the dark side of it (Marxist Socialism), which means everyone who has more than you got it by stealing it from you. And that really appeals to the Cain-like element of the human spirit. Everyone who has more than me got it in a manner that was corrupt and that justifies not only my envy but my actions to level the field so to speak, and to look virtuous while doing it. There is a tremendous philosophy of resentment that I think is driven now by a very pathological anti-human ethos.”- Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

“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.” - Ludwig Von Mises

"Political Correctness is tyranny with manners."- Charlton Heston

"Liberty consists principally in not being forced…Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free…In a country of liberty, every man who is supposed a free agent ought to be his own governor…The real wants of the people ought never to give way to the imaginary wants of the state." - Enlightenment Philosopher, Baron Montesquieu

 "(N)eighbors can share a cause and work together to achieve the common good that both respects the rights of the individual and values the community."

"​A system that protects our rights as individuals strengthens the community." -Author, Michael Morris

"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

"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)

"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

"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 

“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 (prescient 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

 "(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

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"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

"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

“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

"The political/economic narrative of the Left is completely destroyed by one simple fact: Wealth is CREATED not STOLEN. Wealth is like a growing pie fueled by the fruits of innovation, creativity and economic INCENTIVE." - PastPatriot