Best Libertarian Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 32

“I sincerely join you in abjuring all political connection with every foreign power; and tho I cordially wish well to the progress of liberty in all nations, and would forever give it the weight of our countenance, yet they are not to be touched without contamination from their other bad principles. Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.”

Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 31: 1 February 1799 to 31 May 1800

“Legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.”

Mean Has Beens Country Law Certain Natural Poor Clear Land Higher Taxes Property Libertarian Inequality Devices Portions Taxation Progression Unemployed Legislators

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“Private property ... is a Creature of Society, and is subject to the Calls of that Society, whenever its Necessities shall require it, even to its last Farthing, its contributors therefore to the public Exigencies are not to be considered a Benefit on the Public, entitling the Contributors to the Distinctions of Honor and Power, but as the Return of an Obligation previously received, or as payment for a just Debt.”

Lasts Subjects Return Honor Creatures Benefits Property Debt Libertarian Obligation Distinction Payment Private Property Contributors

Book:The Works of Dr. Benjamin Franklin: [Autobiography

Source: The Works of Dr. Benjamin Franklin: [Autobiography

“There has been little or no mention of the vast body of law which contradicts your position. I think you owe it to the people whom you address to explain its existence.”

People Thinking Littles Has Beens Body Law Existence Position Libertarian Addresses

Author:Frankie Sue Del Papa

“Which is better: to achieve Nirvana, or become a Boddhissatva?”

Achieve Libertarian

Author:Taner Edis

“The most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquiring the attitude of suspended conclusion, and in mastering the various methods of searching for new materials to corroborate or to refute the first suggestions that occur.”

Firsts Important Attitude Materials Habit Training Method Various Libertarian Factors Conclusion Good Man Suggestions Suspended

Book:How We Think: Top American Authors

Source: How We Think: Top American Authors

“... As long as you continue to tar social democracy with all the crimes of communism, I feel equally entitled to tar the free market with the crimes of slavery, segregation, colonialism and genocide; piss me off and I'll add fascism and the Nazis.”

Feels Long Social Democracy Crime Slavery Add Libertarian Communism Genocide Fascism Colonialism Entitled Nazi Free Market Segregation Social Democracy

Author:Greg Erwin

“Utopias now appear much more realizable than one used to think. We are now faced with a different new worry: How to prevent their realization.”

Thinking Different Used Worry Libertarian Realization Utopia

Author:Nikolai Berdyaev

“... there is an irrational, cultish tendency in many intellectual movements, and Objectivism, alas, is no exception. Ayn Rand's personal obsession with loyalty did little to discourage this trend.... Rand had often protested, 'Protect me from my followers!'”

Littles Movement Protect Intellectual Libertarian Loyalty Obsession Tendencies Exception Trends Followers Irrational Alas Discouraging Objectivism

Author:Nathaniel Branden

“Now, the Libertarian Party, is a *capitalist* party. It's in favor of what *I* would regard a *particular form* of authoritarian control. Namely, the kind that comes through private ownership and control, which is an *extremely* rigid system of domination - people have to... people can survive, by renting themselves to it, and basically in no other way... I do disagree with them *very* sharply, and I think that they are not..understanding the *fundamental* doctrine, that you should be free from domination and control, including the control of the manager and the owner.”

“There isn't much point arguing about the word "libertarian." It would make about as much sense to argue with an unreconstructed Stalinist about the word "democracy" - recall that they called what they'd constructed "peoples' democracies." The weird offshoot of ultra-right individualist anarchism that is called "libertarian" here happens to amount to advocacy of perhaps the worst kind of imaginable tyranny, namely unaccountable private tyranny. If they want to call that "libertarian," fine; after all, Stalin called his system "democratic." But why bother arguing about it?”

Ifs Want Kind Happens Democracy Worst Fine Amount Democratic Libertarian Arguing Tyranny Bother Recalls Anarchism Advocacy Ultras Why Bother

Author:Noam Chomsky

“[Libertarians] don't denounce what the state does, they just object to who's doing it. This is why the people most victimized by the state display the least interest in libertarianism. Those on the receiving end of coercion don't quibble over their coercers' credentials. If you can't pay or don't want to, you don't much care if your deprivation is called larceny or taxation or restitution or rent. If you like to control your own time, you distinguish employment from enslavement only in degree and duration.”

“... the place where [adults] pass the most time and submit to the closest control is at work. Thus, without even entering into the question of the world economy's ultimate dictation within narrow limits of everybody's productive activity, it's apparent that the source of the greatest direct duress experienced by the ordinary adult is _not_ the state but rather the business that employs him. Your foreman or supervisor gives you more or-else orders in a week than the police do in a decade.”

Source: The Abolition of Work and Other Essays

“Unlike side issues like unemployment, unions, and minimum-wage laws, the subject of work itself is almost entirely absent from libertarian literature. Most of what little there is consists of Randite rantings against parasites, barely distinguishable from the invective inflicted on dissidents by the Soviet press.”

Littles Law Literature Sides Issues Subjects Presses Unions Libertarian Soviet Minimum Unemployment Absent Minimum Wage Parasites Dissidents

Author:Bob Black

“Some people giving orders and others obeying them: this is the essence of servitude. Of course, as Hospers smugly observes, "one can at least change jobs," but you can't avoid having a job - just as under statism one can at least change nationalities but you can't avoid subjection to one nation-state or another. But freedom means more than the right to change masters.”

People Giving Mean States Jobs Order Courses Nations Masters Essence Libertarian Nationality Servitude Obeying Subjection

Author:Bob Black

“To demonize state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.”

World States Economy Worst Libertarian Scales Corporations Contracts Arrangements Identical Authoritarianism Large Scale Subservient World Economy

Book:The Abolition of Work and Other Essays

Source: The Abolition of Work and Other Essays

“In Madison's famous formulation in the Federalist, constitutional restrictions on government assume that we "first enable the government to control the governed." If the public authorities can be outgunned or bribed, the vibrancy of the private sector can be pathological.”

Ifs Firsts Government Authority Assuming Libertarian Restriction Private Sector Madison Federalist Vibrancy

Author:Stephen Holmes

“Science, incidentally, not only ignores the question of indwelling 'essences' by looking instead at measurable relationships, but science also does not agree that knowledge is obtained through Rothbard's Medieval 'investigation by a reason,' i.e., by inventing definitions and then deducing what your definitions implicitly assumed.”

Doe Reason Essence Agree Definitions Libertarian Investigation Medieval Inventing

Author:Robert Anton Wilson

“... I have developed, over the years, some sense of the difference between real horseshit that you can step in and Ideal Platonic Horseshit that exists, evidently, only in the contemplation of those who worship such abstractions; and I continue to notice that Natural Law bears an uncanny resemblance to ideal Platonic Horseshit.”

Years Real Law Natural Differences Steps Bears Worship Ideals Libertarian Contemplation Abstraction Natural Law Resemblance Uncanny Platonic

Author:Robert Anton Wilson

“Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and make him something less than a man.”

Men Giving May Stills Whole Process Chance Information News Libertarian Ignorant Data Propaganda Judgement Reasoning Falsehood Deliberate Incomplete Biased Sloppy

Author:Arthur Hays Sulzberger

“But the stupidity which is common to all such "explanations" is, of course, simply that of proceeding as though the merits of a theory - such things as truth, or probability, or explanatory power - could not possibly be among the reasons for its currency.”

Reason Courses Common Theory Stupidity Libertarian Explanation Merit Currency Probability Proceeding

Book:On Enlightenment

Source: On Enlightenment

“The Libertarians, of whom I'm rather fond, are running Harry Browne. Libertarians are, just as they claim, principled and consistent - they believe in individual liberty. Commendable as they are, and despite their reliability as allies in civil liberties struggles, you may notice that Libertarians sometimes prove that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and that there is a difference between logic and wisdom.”

“Economist Frederick Thayer has studied the history of our balanced-budget crusades and has come up with some depressing statistics. We have had six major depressions in our history (1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1929); all six of them followed sustained periods of reducing the national debt. We have had almost chronic deficits since the 1930s, and there has been no depression since then - the longest crash-free period in our history.”

Has Beens Periods Six Majors Come Up Debt Libertarian Budgets Statistics Balanced Crash Depressing Economist Deficit Reducing 1930s Crusades National Debt Balanced Budget

Author:Molly Ivins

“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”

Belief Movement Mass Devil Spread Libertarian Believer True Believer

Book:Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

“Men did not make the earth... It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. ... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.”

Men Earth Values Individual Community Land Property Libertarian Improvement

Author:Thomas Paine

“In practice, without appropriate government intervention, Smith's "invisible hand" dons brass knuckles and conducts gang warfare, creating fierce battles between competitors who would be more than happy to define and enforce their own private property interests according to their own subjective rules.”

“The laissez-faire argument relies on the same tacit appeal to perfection as does communism.”

Doe Argument Perfection Libertarian Communism Appeals Rely Laissez Faire Tacit Laissez Faire Capitalism

Author:George Soros

“In a world torn by every kind of fundamentalism - religious, ethnic, nationalist and tribal - we must grant first place to economic fundamentalism, with its religious conviction that the market, left to its own devices, is capable of resolving all our problems. This faith has its own ayatollahs. Its church is neo-liberalism; its creed is profit; its prayers are for monopolies.”

World Firsts Kind Problem Left Church Religious Prayer Economic Capable Profit Conviction Libertarian Liberalism Devices Grants Creeds Fundamentalism Torn Monopoly

Author:Carlos Fuentes

“Imagine wasting all that perfectly good anger on paranoid fantasies. Not since Emily Litella got upset about "Soviet jewelry" has there been such a waste of anger. You will notice a certain theme to these Emily Litella Moments. Behind them all is a touching faith that someone, somewhere is actually in charge of what's happening - a proposition I beg leave to doubt.”

Moments Certain Behinds Fantasy Doubt Imagine Waste Happenings Libertarian Upset Theme Touching Soviet Propositions Jewelry Paranoid Emily Perfectly Good

Book:You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You

Source: You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You

“... often analysis seems to be based on the assumption that future economic output is almost entirely determined by inexorable economic forces independently of government policy so that devoting more resources to one use inevitably detracts from availability for another.”

Use Seems Government Force Economic Policy Resources Determined Libertarian Analysis Assumption Output Availability Inexorable Government Policy

Author:William Vickrey

“Information technology alone cannot provide us an absolute shield against its evil twin disinformation technology. Our only protection is law, and that protection is available to us only if legitimate governments have the power to govern.”

Ifs Government Law Evil Technology Information Absolutes Available Protection Libertarian Twins Shields Information Technology Legitimate Government

Author:Paul Starr

“Liberalism demands that people without guns be able to tell people with guns what to do.”

People Able Demand Gun Libertarian Liberalism

Author:Stephen Holmes

“Since inequalities of privilege are greater than could possibly be defended rationally, the intelligence of privileged groups is usually applied to the task of inventing specious proofs for the theory that universal values spring from, and that general interests are served by, the special privileges which they hold.”

Values Interest Greater Groups Special Theory Spring Tasks Universal Privilege Libertarian Proof Inequality Privileged Inventing

Book:Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics

Source: Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics

“... the modern state masks itself in moral ideologies which obscure its actual conduct. One of the most compelling and insidious of these ideologies is the doctrine of natural rights. It was to secure these rights that the modern state was invented in the first place, and it is impossible, especially for Americans, not to be seduced by the doctrine. But it is nonetheless a philosophical superstition.”

Firsts States Natural Moral Rights Impossible Modern Philosophical Libertarian Doctrine Secure Ideology Mask Superstitions Compelling Obscure Insidious Natural Rights

Author:Donald Livingston

“Together, the property rights and public choice schools show only that, if you start by assuming a purely individualistic model of human behavior and treat politics as if it were a pale imitation of the market, democracy will, indeed, make no sense.”

Ifs Humans Shows School Together Choices Democracy Rights Behavior Models Treats Assuming Property Libertarian Pale Imitation Human Behavior Property Rights Individualistic

Author:Paul Starr

“... an essential feature of a decent society, and an almost defining feature of a democratic society, is relative equality of outcome - not opportunity, but outcome. Without that you can't seriously talk about a democratic state... These concepts of the common good have a long life. They lie right at the core of classical liberalism, of Enlightenment thinking... Like Aristotle, [Adam] Smith understood that the common good will require substantial intervention to assure lasting prosperity of the poor by distribution of public revenues.”

“Talk of democracy has little content when big business rules the life of the country through its control of the means of production, exchange, the press and other means of publicity, propaganda and communication.”

Mean Littles Country Bigs Democracy Communication Presses Productions Libertarian Propaganda Publicity Democracies Have Big Business

Author:John Dewey

“A favorite Wired icon for the information feedback loop, a dragon curling in a circle to swallow its own tail, could become more apt as a symbol of the timeless libertarian paradox: Monopoly verging on feudalism emerges from unregulated competition to bite libertarianism in the posterior.”

“For at least the past 65 years, liberalism has been nothing if not an attempt to strike a balance between the needs of the community and the needs of individuals, between the need for freedom and the need for order.”

Ifs Needs Years Has Beens Past Order Individual Community Balance Libertarian Strikes Liberalism

Author:Alan Brinkley

“The myth of the inevitability of economic globalization is based largely on the work of Milton Friedman, and easily the most underreported story of our time is that the current economy proves Friedman flatly wrong.”

Stories Economy Economic Prove Currents Myth Libertarian Our Time Globalization Inevitability Milton Economic Globalization

Author:Molly Ivins

“All of us inevitably spend our lives evolving from an initial to a final stage of dependence. If we are fortunate enough to achieve power and relative independence along the way, it is a transient and passing glory.”

Ifs Way Enough Our Lives Achieve Stage Glory Independence Finals Libertarian Passing Passings Evolve Fortunate Relative Dependence Initials Transient

Author:Willard Gaylin

“I hear Republicans and Libertarians and so forth talking about property rights, but they stop talking about property rights as soon as the subject of American Indians comes up, because they know fully well, perhaps not in a fully articulated, conscious form, but they know fully well that the basis for the very system of endeavor and enterprise and profitability to which they are committed and devoted accrues on the basis of theft of the resources of someone else. They are in possession of stolen property. They know it. They all know it. It's a dishonest endeavor from day one.”

“How much freedom I have depends on the number and nature of my options. And that, in turn, depends both on the rules of the game and on the assetts of the players: it is a very important and widely neglected truth that it does not depend on the rules of the game alone.”

Doe Important Turns Games Numbers Player Depends Libertarian Neglected Me Alone Rules Of The Game

Book:Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality

Source: Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality

“The organizer of industry who thinks he has 'made' himself and his business has found a whole social system ready to his hand in skilled workers, machinery, a market, peace and order - a vast apparatus and a pervasive atmosphere, the joint creation of millions of men and scores of generations. Take away the whole social factor, and we have not Robinson Crusoe with his salvage from the wreck and his acquired knowledge, but the native savage living on roots, berries and vermin.”

“But, that’s the whole point of corporatization - to try to remove the public from making decisions over their own fate, to limit the public arena, to control opinion, to make sure that the fundamental decisions that determine how the world is going to be run - which includes production, commerce, distribution, thought, social policy, foreign policy, everything - are not in the hands of the public, but rather in the hands of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny unaccountable to the public.”

“Marriage vows in an objectivist church would probably run along the lines of "Do you promise to attempt to dominate and subdue this woman until such time as you grow bored?" "Maybe." "Close enough. And do you promise to applaud this man`s production until such time as you find someone with a bigger ... corporation?" "Whatever." "By the power vested in me by having scammed you guys out of a marriage license fee, I now pronounce you man and appendage. May you be unencumbered by small persons."”

Men May Persons Enough Running Guy Grows Church Lines Promise Bigger Productions Libertarian Bored Corporations License Vow Fees Marriage Vows Small Person

Author:Robert Slade

“In claiming that prohibition, not the drugs themselves, is the problem, Nadelmann and many others - even policemen - have said that "the war on drugs is lost." But to demand a yes or no answer to the question "Is the war against drugs being won?" is like demanding a yes or no answer to the question "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Never can an unimaginative and fundamentally stupid metaphor have exerted a more baleful effect upon proper thought.”

Said War Problem Lost Answers Wife Effects Stupid Drug Demand Metaphor Libertarian Policemen Prohibition War On Drugs Yes Or No

Book:Our Culture, What's Left of it: The Mandarins and the Masses

Source: Our Culture, What's Left of it: The Mandarins and the Masses

“We've got the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble when it comes to crime in this country. The FBI says burglary and robbery cost U.S. taxpayers $3.8 billion annually. Securities fraud alone costs four times that. And securities fraud is nothing to the cost of oil spills, price-fixing, and dangerous or defective products. Fraud by health-care corporations alone costs us between $100 billion and $400 billion a year. No three-strikes-and-you're-out for these guys. Remember the S&L scandal? $500 billion.”

“Development cannot really be so centered only on those in power.”

Development Libertarian

Book:Development as Freedom

Source: Development as Freedom

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Libertarian Quotes