You Own Your Own Life…
To lose your Life is to lose your Future, to lose your Liberty is to lose your Present
…and to lose the product of your Life and Liberty is to lose that portion of your Past that produced it
A product of you Life and Liberty is your Property
— Ken Schoolland, The Philosophy of Liberty
When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already…What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”
— Adolf Hitler, on Public Education, speech in November 1933
Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule.
– P.J.O’Rourke, Parliament of Whores (1991)
The Tyranny of the Majority, vs the Unanimity of Liberty
The political principle that underlies the market mechanism is unanimity. In an ideal free market resting on private property, no individual can coerce any other, all cooperation is voluntary, all parties to such cooperation benefit or they need not participate.
— Milton Friedman, The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits, The New York Times Magazine
The Tyranny of the Majority, vs the Unanimity of Liberty
Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today?
The government that seems the most unwise,
Oft goodness to the people best supplies;
That which is meddling, touching everything,
Will work but ill, and disappointment bring.
– Tao Te Ching
Greenpeace fund-raisers on the subject of global warming are not much different than tribal wizards on the subject of lunar eclipses. “Oh no, the Night Wolf is eating the Moon Virgin. Give me some silver and I’ll make him spit her out.”
– P.J.O’Rourke, All the Trouble in the World
Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him?
– Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address (1801)
Till the mischief be grown general, and the ill designs of the rulers become visible, or their attempts sensible to the greater part, the people, who are more disposed to suffer than right themselves by resistance, are not apt to stir.
The examples of particular injustice, or oppression of here and there an unfortunate man, moves them not. But if they universally have a persuation, grounded upon manifest evidence,that designs are carrying on against their liberties, and the general course and tendency of things cannot but give them strong suspicions of the evil intention of their governors, who is to be blamed for it?
–John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government
Scientists tell us that the fastest animal on earth, with a top speed of 120 ft/sec, is a cow that has been dropped out of a helicopter.
“My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober”.
– G. K. Chesterton, A Defence of Patriotism
How, Exactly, Are They Defending Our Freedom?
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
– Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
I don’t make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts.
– Will Rogers, Saturday Review (25 August 1962)
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
— Plato (Aristocles, son of Ariston) , “The Republic“
The Global War on Terror is a Lie
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.
– P. J. O’Roarke, The Liberty Manifesto
Who Are the 47 Million Uninsured?
Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?
– H. L. Mencken, Prejudices, the Second Series1924
Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man’s lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one’s self.
— Max Stirner
source unknown, please tell us if you know
The State always moves slowly and grudgingly towards any purpose that accrues to society’s advantage, but moves rapidly and with alacrity towards one that accrues to its own advantage; nor does it ever move towards social purposes on its own initiative, but only under heavy pressure, while its motion towards anti-social purposes is self-sprung.
— Albert Jay Nock “Our Enemy, the State“
Conscription is slavery, and I don’t think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can’t save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!
— Robert A. Heinlein, Guest of Honor Speech at the 29th World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, Washington (1961)
Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.
— William Godwin, An Inquiry Concerning Political Justice, 1783
Remember this, take it to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary…true patriotism, the rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.
– Mark Twain, The Czar Soliloquy, 1905
These people are either too superstitiously religious, or too cowardly for arms; they either can not or dare not defend ; their property is open to anyone who has the courage to attack them…
The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like law, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.
The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside.
Horrid mischief would ensue were one-half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong.
— Thomas Paine, Thoughts on Defensive War, 1775
Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930’s the media peddled a coming ice age. From the late 1920’s until the 1960’s they warned of global warming. From the 1950’s until the 1970’s they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate’s fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years.
– Senator James Inhofe, Monday, September 25, 2006, See the pattern of ice age/warming claims here
This chart shows the alternating claims of coming ice age and global warming, overlaid with NOAA's own current claims of climate change. Note that they not only turn every minor change into a major disaster, but sometimes they actually get it completely wrong.
I want people to be able to get what they need to live: enough food, a place to live, and an education for their children. Government does not provide these as well as private charities and businesses.
—Colonel David Crockett, member of Congress 1827-32, 1832-35
If rulers take too much grain, People rapidly starve; If rulers take too much freedom, People easily rebel; If rulers take too much happiness, People gladly die.
By not interfering the sage improves the people’s lives.
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
— Thomas Jefferson‘s First Inaugural Address
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
…remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody’s head.
Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don’t pay taxes, you’ll be fined. If you don’t pay the fine, you’ll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you’ll be shot.
Thus I:
Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, “Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?”
There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.
— Henry David Thoreau
Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
But Now You Know
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.
Words of the Sentient 