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Government Quotes

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Government Quotes

“At one end of the spectrum are the terrorist gangs within our borders, and the terrorist states which finance and arm them. At the other are the hard left operating inside our system, conspiring to use union power and the apparatus of local government to break, defy and subvert the law.”

EndsHardStatesUseGovernmentLawLeftBreakArmsUnionsTerroristLocalsFinanceBordersGangSpectrumLocal GovernmentConspiring
Book:The collected speeches of Margaret Thatcher
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“Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, laws, under no form of government, are better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind.”

GovernmentHappinessFormLawImaginationLibertyMankindSecurityPropertyContraryRepublicForms Of GovernmentPhantomsSecuredDeludedRepublicanism
Book:Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious
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“Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.”

StatesGovernmentLawOpportunityIndividualAchieveTalentPolicyEqualCapacityDenyProtectionOfficialsAspireCitizenshipStatureState GovernmentEqual OpportunityEqual ProtectionIndividual Talent
Book:My Own Words
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“If we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent to the observation of justice, and other laws of Nature, without a common Power to keep them all in awe; we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same; and then there neither would be nor need to be any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be Peace without subjection.”

IfsMenNeedsWellsGovernmentMightWould BeLawJusticeCommonMankindObservationAweMultitudesConsentLaws Of NatureCommonwealthSubjection
Book:Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil
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“Our principle is: to prevent all command over man by his fellowmen, to, make state, government, laws, or whatsoever form of compulsion existing, a thing of the past, to establish full freedom for all. Anarchism means first and foremost freedom from all government.”

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Book:The Social Monster: A Paper on Communism and Anarchism
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“The First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights in the United States Constitution were being violated in Albany again and again - freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the equal protection of the laws - I could count at least 30 such violations. Yet the president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and all the agencies of the United States government at his disposal, were nowhere to be seen.”

FirstsStatesGovernmentLawPresidentUnitedUnited StatesRightsEqualSpeechConstitutionProtectionAgencyAmendmentsFreedom Of SpeechAgain And AgainViolationFirst AmendmentAssemblyState GovernmentUnited States GovernmentEqual ProtectionAlbanyFreedom Of AssemblyFourteenth Amendment
Author:Howard Zinn
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“However accurate or inaccurate the agency's numbers may be, tax law explicitly presumes that the IRS is always right -- and implicitly presumes that the taxpayer is always wrong -- in any dispute with the government. In many cases, the IRS introduces no evidence whatsoever of its charges; it merely asserts that a taxpayer had a certain amount of unreported income and therefore owes a proportionate amount in taxes, plus interest and penalties.”

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Author:James Bovard
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“No-knock police raids destroy Americans' right to privacy and safety. People's lives are being ruined or ended as a result of unsubstantiated assertions by anonymous government informants. ... Unfortunately, no-knock raids are becoming more common as federal, state, and local politicians and law enforcement agencies decide that the war on drugs justified nullifying the Fourth Amendment. ... No-knock raids in response to alleged narcotics violations presume that the government should have practically unlimited power to endanger some people's lives in order to control what others ingest.”

PeopleShouldWarStatesGovernmentLawOrderResultsCommonBecomingPoliticianDrugShould HavePoliceSafetyResponseLocalsAgencyPrivacyAmendmentsFourthUnlimitedLaw EnforcementRuinedEnforcementJustifiedViolationAssertionBecoming MoreWar On DrugsNarcoticsUnlimited PowerRight To PrivacyFourth AmendmentInformants
Author:James Bovard
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“America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. By trying to seize far more power than is necessary over American citizens, the federal government is destroying its own legitimacy. We face a choice not of anarchy or authoritarianism, but a choice of limited government or unlimited government .”

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Book:Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty
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“In representing criminal defendants - especially guilty ones - it is often necessary to take the offensive against the government: to put the government on trial for its misconduct. In law, as in sports, the best defense is often a good offense. The courtroom oath - to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - is applicable only to witnesses... because the American justice system is built on a foundation of not telling the whole entire truth.”

WholeGovernmentLawSportsJusticeTruth IsBuiltFoundationDefenseCriminalsTrialsGuiltyWitnessTelling The TruthOffensiveOffenseOathIn-lawsRepresentingJustice SystemCourtroomWhole TruthNothing But The TruthMisconductAmerican Justice
Author:Alan Dershowitz
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“America's Christian conservative movement is confronted with this divide: small-government advocates who want to practice their faith independent of heavy-handed government versus big-government sympathizers who want to impose their version of 'righteousness' on others through the hammer of law.... Our movement must avoid the temptations of power and those who would twist the good intentions of Christian voters to support policies that undermine freedom and grow government.”

WantBigsGovernmentChristianAmericaLawGrowsPracticeSupportPolicyMovementIndependentIntentionConservativeHeavyVersionsTemptationRighteousnessVotersDividesVersusTwistsHammersGood IntentionsBig GovernmentSmall Government
Author:Dick Armey
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“Economists tell us that the 'price' of an object and its 'value' have very little or nothing to do with one another. 'Value' is entirely subjective economic value, anyway while 'price' reflects whatever a buyer is willing to give up to get the object in question, and whatever the seller is willing to accept to give it up. Both are governed by the Law of Marginal Utility, which is actually a law of psychology, rather than economics. For government to attempt to dictate a 'fair price' betrays complete misunderstanding of the entire process.”

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Author:L. Neil Smith
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“Any politico who's afraid of his constituents being armed, should be. Leaders of the anti-gun movement (for the most part, politicians who enthusiastically advocate confiscatory taxation and government control of everything) realize that a populace is much easier to herd, loot and dispose of if it has been stripped of its weapons. The naked fraud and transparent fascism of victim disarmament must be eradicated through the repeal of all gun laws at every level of government.”

IfsShouldHas BeensGovernmentLawRealizingLevelsLeaderMovementPoliticianEasierWeaponsGunVictimNakedFraudFascismTaxationTransparentHerdsDisarmamentConstituentsAnti GunGun Law
Author:L. Neil Smith
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“I believe that "government", as we know it today, should pull out of most things except for law enforcement and justice, national defense and foreign policy, and let the private sector, a "Grameenized private sector", a social-consciousness-driven private sector, take over their other functions.”

KnowsShouldBelieveGovernmentTodayLawI BelieveSocialJusticeConsciousnessPolicyFunctionDefenseDrivenForeign PolicyLaw EnforcementEnforcementPrivate SectorNational DefenseSocial Consciousness
Book:Banker to the Poor: The Autobiography of Muhammad Yunus, Founder of the Grameen Bank
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“Anarchism is in reality the ideal of political and social science, and also the ideal of religion. It is the ideal to which Jesus Christ looked forward. Christ founded no church, established no state, gave practically no laws, organized no government and set up no external authority, but he did seek to write on the hearts of men God's law and make them self-legislating.”

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Author:R. Heber Newton
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“It is the lawyers who run our civilization for us -- our governments, our business, our private lives. Most legislators are lawyers; they make our laws. Most presidents, governors, commissioners, along with their advisers and brain-trusters are lawyers; they administer our laws. All the judges are lawyers; they interpret and enforce our laws. There is no separation of powers where the lawyers are concerned. There is only a concentration of all government power -- in the lawyers.”

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Author:Fred Rodell
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“Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals. We look away from government for relief, because we know that force (legalized) invades the personal liberty of man, seizes upon the natural elements and intervenes between man and natural laws; from this exercise of force through governments flows nearly all the misery, poverty, crime and confusion existing in society.”

ThinkingKnowsMenBelieveLooksLongSelfGovernmentLawPoliticalIndividualForceNaturalLibertyPovertyCrimeDevelopmentPeriodsExerciseElementsFlowVoteFundamentalsMiseryCampaignsConfusionReliefAnarchismAnarchistBeggingNatural LawPolitical CampaignPersonal LibertyChanges In SocietyNatural Elements
Author:Lucy Parsons
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“What makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odious is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to make it appear that there's a logical relationship between say opposing affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants. The late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called this 'the broad-brush smear.'”

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Author:Don Feder
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“The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.”

FirstsMeanPersonsStatesGovernmentLawBeliefForceChurchAtheismInfluencePositive AtheismAidsEstablishmentAmendmentsFederal GovernmentFirst AmendmentDisbeliefSeparation Of Church And StateClauses
Author:Hugo Black
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“Way down deep the American people are afraid of an entangling relationship between formal religions - or whole bodies of religious belief - and government. Apart from constitutional law and religious doctrine, there is a sense that tells us it's wrong to presume to speak for God or to claim God's sanction of our particular legislation and his rejection of all other positions. Most of us are offended when we see religion being trivialized by its appearance in political throw-away pamphlets.”

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Author:Mario Cuomo
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“The average ordinary person, in the worst slums of America, someone who might even hate the law and disagree with the government, they would do something about that [abandoned child]. But in Afghanistan, people hardly have the means to take care of themselves, let alone a random child on the street.”

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Author:Immortal Technique
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“I am convinced that those societies (such as the Native American peoples) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“This is what the government is, has always been, the creator and defender of privilege; the organization of oppression and revenge. To hope that it can ever become anything else is the vainest of delusions. They tell you that Anarchy, the dream of social order without government, is a wild fancy. The wildest dream that ever entered the heart of man is the dream that mankind can ever help itself through an appeal to law, or to come to any order that will not result in slavery wherein there is any excuse for government.”

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Author:Voltairine de Cleyre
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“In a composite Nation like ours, made up of almost every variety of the human family, there should be, as before the Law, no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no black, no white, but one country, one citizenship equal rights and a common destiny for all. A government that cannot or does not protect the humblest citizen in his right to life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, should be reformed or overthrown, without delay.”

ShouldHumansDoeMadeCountryGovernmentLawNationsBlackWhitePoorCommonLibertyDestinyRichRightsCitizensProtectEqualLowsEqualityPursuitVarietyCitizenshipDelayEqual RightsPursuit Of HappinessRight To LifeHuman FamilyCompositesLife Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness
Author:Frederick Douglass
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“It is better for a city to be governed by a good man than by good laws.”

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Book:Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
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“It is urged that the use of the masculine pronouns he, his, and him in all the constitutions and laws, is proof that only men were meant to be included in their provisions. If you insist on this version of the letter of the law, we shall insist that you be consistent and accept the other horn of the dilemma, which would compel you to exempt women from taxation for the support of the government and from penalties for the violation of laws. There is no she or her or hers in the tax laws, and this is equally true of all the criminal laws.”

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Author:Susan B. Anthony
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“Private property is held sacred in all good governments, and particularly in our own. Yet shall the fear of invading it prevent a general from marching his army over a cornfield or burning a house which protects the enemy? A thousand other instances might be cited to show that laws must sometimes be silent when necessity speaks.”

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Author:Andrew Jackson
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“While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice - that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.”

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Author:Edward Snowden
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“Most gun dealers follow the law and run honest businesses. But the statistics show that 1 percent of dealers sell more than half of all illegal guns. Why isn't the federal government going after them? Here's one reason: unlike mayors, members of Congress don't get a phone call in the middle of the night when a cop is shot and killed. They don't deliver the eulogies.”

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Author:Michael Bloomberg
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