“The fact is that surveys which media people openly admit to show that fewer than twelve percent of their customers believe they're doing a good job, while the average profit margin in television is in the neighborhood of eighty percent.” PeopleBelieveFactsShowsJobsMediaTelevisionPercentAverageProfitCustomersNeighborhoodFewerTwelveGood JobEightyMarginsSurveysProfit Margin Author:L. Neil Smith
“You're people, in short, who must be stupid, insane, or evil to continue arguing in the face of indisputable facts and irrefutable logic that others must be forced into a state of helplessness and victimized by individual criminals or the state. Stupid, insane, or evil.” PeopleStatesFactsFacesEvilIndividualStupidLogicCriminalsArguingInsaneHelplessness Author:L. Neil Smith
“Most libertarians agree that all rights are, in effect, property rights, beginning with this fundamental right to self-ownership and control of one's own life. As owners of their own lives, individuals are completely free to do absolutely anything they wish with them provided, of course, that it doesn't violate the identical right of others whether the people around them approve of what they do or not.” PeopleSelfCoursesIndividualWishRightsEffectsAgreeFundamentalsPropertyLibertarianOwnersOwnershipIdenticalProperty RightsSelf OwnershipOwnership And Control Author:L. Neil Smith
“We must oppose programs that would take food from the mouths of younger generations to buy prescription drugs for old people, and we must do it... for the children.” PeopleChildrenGenerationsDrugMouthsProgramOld PeoplePrescriptionsYounger GenerationPrescription Drugs Author:L. Neil Smith
“If conservatives really believed in individual liberty, as they endlessly claim and if they used both halves of their brains then they'd be libertarians. Instead, they sabotage themselves, and their cause, by constantly generating one spurious reason after another to deprive other people of their freedom.” PeopleIfsReasonUsedIndividualCausesBrainHalfLibertyClaimsLibertarianSabotageIndividual Liberty Author:L. Neil Smith
“Even if drugs are fully as destructive as they are usually claimed to be, it is morally wrong and demonstrably more destructive for government to deprive people of their unalienable, individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to make an utter mess of their own lives. Since human beings are inclined to learn more from the mistakes they make, rather than from their triumphs, the right to fail, for individuals and groups alike, may be even more important than the right to succeed, and it must be fiercely protected at almost any cost.” PeopleIfsHumansMayImportantGovernmentIndividualHuman BeingsMistakeFailingGroupsCostDrugSucceedMessTriumphDestructiveProtected Author:L. Neil Smith
“I have a recurring daymare that when the Glorious People's SWAT Teams smash their way in, most of us - by which I mean members of the general freedom movement - will be caught flatfooted, sitting in our underwear behind our computer monitors, guzzling Jolt and gorging on Cheetos, while arguing with our friends and enemies online about immigration or abortion, two of the issues that the Lefties know they can always rely on to keep that general freedom movement divided and powerless.” PeopleKnowsWayMeanTwoBehindsEnemyIssuesTeamMovementMembersComputerSittingCaughtArguingImmigrationRelyGloriousAbortionOnlineDividedPowerlessUnderwearRecurringFriends And EnemiesLefties Author:L. Neil Smith
“Psychologist Nathaniel Branden speaks of a benevolent sense of life possible to those with rational, productive values, vividly contrasted with the coercive parasitic group-culture of mystics and altruists we live in, where people all around you seem a burdensome annoyance, a threat to your survival. Having been told from childhood that life is a zero-sum game in which you owe everything to others, at some level you worry all the time that someday the bastards will collect. And collect they do, every April 15th. Why do you think they call it collectivism?” PeopleThinkingSeemsLife IsValuesCultureGamesSpeakLevelsWorryGroupsChildhoodSurvivalThreatRationalProductiveSomedayZeroAprilPsychologistCollectivismBenevolentAnnoyanceZero Sum Game Author:L. Neil Smith
“Government can only do two things: It can beat people up and kill them. Or it can threaten to do so. When it seems to be doing something else - for example, handing out money or, say, surplus cheese - what's actually going on is that something has been taken away from one set of individuals by deadly force or the threat of deadly force, a hefty middleman's fee deducted, and whatever is left thrown to peasants delighted to receive stolen goods.” PeopleHas BeensTwoSeemsGovernmentIndividualLeftForceTakenExampleBeatsThreatTwo ThingsThrownGoodsCheeseStolenPeasantsDelightedFeesSurplusMiddlemenDeadly Force Author:L. Neil Smith
“People in the mass media tend more and more every day to look and act like elected and appointed officials.” PeopleLooksMediaMassOfficialsMass Media Author:L. Neil Smith
“People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically 'right.' Guns ended that, and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work.” PeopleMenForceSocialAnimalLibertyDemocracyViolenceObjectsWeaponsGunLibertarianStrongestGun ControlHollowBrutesBeggingFarceBrute ForceSocial DemocracyGuns In America Book:The Probability Broach Source: The Probability Broach
“Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bears arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason,then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.” PeopleIfsFirstsSaidStatesProcessSecurityArmsBearsGunDuesTrialsAmendmentsGun ControlSecond AmendmentTreasonClausesDue ProcessFree State Author:L. Neil Smith
“As a novelist, I have a somewhat higher soapbox to stand on than most people do when it comes to talking back to the merchants of fear.” PeopleTalkingHigherNovelistsMerchantsSoapboxTalking Back Author:L. Neil Smith
“Victim disarmament types are sick, sick people, who'd rather see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose than see her with a gun in her hand.” PeopleHandsTypeGunSickVictimDisarmamentAlleysPantyhose Author:L. Neil Smith
“People - pardon me, journalists and politicians - have often accused me of believing that I'm above the law. And yet, who isn't? Everywhere you prod it, even with the shortest stick, the established system isn't simply corrupt, it's unequivocally putrescent. The law is created by demonstrable criminals, enforced by demonstrable, interpreted by demonstrable criminals, all for demonstrably criminal purposes. Of course I'm above the law. And so are you.” PeopleBelieveLawPurposeCoursesPoliticianSticksCriminalsJournalistAccusedPardonAbove The LawPardon Me Author:L. Neil Smith
“Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220 pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110 pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out. Is that evil? Is that wrong?” PeopleWellsTwoStatesEvilLibertyDignityPropertyLibertarianWell BeingPoundsIronMachineryThug Book:The Probability Broach Source: The Probability Broach
“I've heard that phallic symbol argument before, and always from ineffectual people driven to make everyone else as helpless as they are. who's more confused, those who think weapons are sexual organs, or those who want to take everyone's sexual organs away?.” PeopleThinkingWantHeardWeaponsArgumentDrivenSymbolsConfusedOrgansHelpless Book:The Probability Broach Source: The Probability Broach
