Occasionally I take a look at what I’ve recently
added to the quote file. I add randomly, depending on what I’ve happened upon
that strikes me as worth saving. But sometimes there seems to be a theme. As I
read through some recent additions, I saw these
interconnected ideas:
·
Government’s purpose is protecting life, liberty, and
property. Anything else government attempts is tyranny. And we need to be
constantly vigilant to prevent that.
·
Liberty and property are subsets of valuing life. Liberty is
the freedom to make your life choices, think and say what you believe, simply
to live your life. And property is what you accumulate by productively living your
life. So to take what you have accumulated through your work—the way you spend
your life—is to take those hours, days, or years of your life. In other words,
to enslave you.
·
Government isn’t capable of charity, or even good intentions.
It is only power.
·
No one can coerce income redistribution without enslaving
some to serve whoever the slave driver deigns to benefit.
Words like these quotes are worth reading, and
maybe re-reading, from time to time.
The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for
the urge to rule it.—H.
L. Mencken, Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks, 1956
The whole
aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.—H.
L. Mencken, In Defense of Women
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| Thomas Jefferson statue in the Jefferson Memorial |
I predict future happiness for
Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the
people under the pretense of taking care of them.
—Thomas
Jefferson
It has been fundamental to our way of life that charity must be voluntary if it is to be charity. Compulsory benevolence is not charity. Today's egalitarians are using the federal government to redistribute wealth in our society, not as a matter of voluntary charity, but as a matter of right.—Ezra Taft Benson, This Nation Shall Endure, p. 91
The
duty of the true patriot is to protect his country from its government.
—Thomas Paine
I
would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than
those attending too small a degree of it.—Thomas Jefferson
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny
sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It
would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral
busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at
some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment
us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.―C. S.
Lewis
One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their
intentions rather than their results—Milton Friedman
In these days of uncertainty and unrest, liberty-loving
people’s greatest responsibility and paramount duty is to preserve and proclaim
freedom of the individual, his relationship to Deity, and the necessity of
obedience to the principles of the Gospel of Christ—only thus will mankind find
peace and happiness—David O. McKay, Conference Report, Apr. 1950, p. 37.
The champions of
socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is
characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind
of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon
abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for
dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the
government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but
they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one
a subordinate clerk in a bureau.—Ludwig von Mises
This
relationship between a spiritual faith—a religious faith—and our form of
government is so clearly defined and so obvious that we should really not need
to identify a man as unusual because he recognizes it.—Dwight D. Eisenhower
The government of the United States is a definite government,
confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose
powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the
government.—James Madison, 1794
Collectivism leads to
concentration camps, leader worship, and war.
—George Orwell, The Observer, April 9, 1944
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.
It was their final, most essential command.—George Orwell, Nineteen
Eighty-Four
Socialists cry “Power to the people,” and raise the clenched
fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over the
people, power to the State.—Margaret Thatcher
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| David O. McKay image from here |
Our immediate concern, however, is not with parties, groups, or persons,
but with principles. We therefore commend and encourage every person and every
group who are sincerely seeking to study Constitutional principles and awaken a
sleeping and apathetic people to the alarming conditions that are rapidly
advancing about us. We wish all of our citizens throughout the land were
participating in some type of organized self-education in order that they could
better appreciate what is happening and know what they can do about it.—David
O. McKay, Improvement Era, June 1966
Whoever
claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the
right to treat human beings as chattel.—Ayn Rand
When the resolution of
enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was
advised…to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave
them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink
gradually.—George Mason, address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1788
"There are
four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on
yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re
doing, and you try to get the most for your
money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a
birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content
of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody
else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then
I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money
on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m
not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And
that’s government. And that’s close to 40 percent of our national income.
—Milton Friedman
in Fox News interview, May 2004
The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to
take the government off the backs of people.—Supreme Court Justice William O.
Douglas
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