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)
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
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
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else.
But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
— Theodore Roosevelt
But Now You Know
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.
Words of the Sentient 