Libertarianism Quotes - Page 23

• I think self-destructiveness is given a really bad rap. I think it can also mean self-reflection and poetic sensiblity. It can mean empathy, hedonism, a libertarianism.

  Courtney Love

  Rap, Mean, Thinking

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• My contact with [Cato] was strange. They're ideologues, like Trotskyites. All questions must be seen and solved within the true faith of libertarianism, the idea of minimal government. And like Trotskyites, the guys from Cato can talk you to death.

  Nat Hentoff

  Government, Ideas, Guy

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• Taking somebody's money without permission is stealing, unless you work for the IRS; then it's taxation. Killing people en masse is homicidal mania, unless you work for the Army; then it's National Defense. Spying on your neighbors is invasion of privacy, unless you work for the FBI; then it's National Security. Running a whorehouse makes you a pimp and poisoning people makes you a murderer, unless you work for the CIA; then it's counter-intelligence.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Running, Army, People

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• There is only one way to kill capitalism - by taxes, taxes, and more taxes.

  Unknown

  Liberty, Libertarian, Way

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• There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse.

  Thomas Sowell

  Political, Liberty, Libertarian

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• The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others - with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means.

  Henry Grady Weaver

  Mean, Views, Agony

  Henry Grady Weaver (2016). “The Mainspring of Human Progress [Revised Edition]”, p.38, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• There's nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.

  Milton Friedman

  Liberty, Doe, Libertarian

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• The most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the "best" sources.

  Walter Karp

  Powerful, Liberty, Libertarian

  Walter Karp (1992). “Buried alive: essays on our endangered republic”, Franklin Square Pr

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• Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name it tries to dignify itself with, not the social-Darwinist economic 'libertarianism' of the far right; but anarchism, as prefigured in early Taoist thought, and expounded by Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. Anarchism's principal target is the authoritarian State (capitalist or socialist); its principle moral-practical theme is cooperation (solidarity, mutual aid). It is the most idealistic, and to me the most interesting, of all political theories.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Names, Interesting, Political

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• To me, it doesn't matter if your scapegoats are the Jews, the homosexuals, the male sex, the Masons, the Jesuits, the Welfare Parasites, the Power Elite, the female sex, the vegetarians, or the Communist Party. To the extent that you need a scapegoat, you simply have not got your brain programmed to work as an efficient problem-solving machine.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Sex, Party, Brain

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• How ever sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, religion or all four.

  Gloria Steinem

  Sex, Race, Liberty

  Gloria Steinem (1986). “Outrageous acts and everyday rebellions”, New Amer Library

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• Complete and accurate surveillance as a means of control is probably a practical impossibility. What is much more likely is a loss of privacy and constant inconvenience as the wrong people gain access to information, as one wastes time convincing the inquisitors that one is in fact innocent, or as one struggles to untangle the errors of the errant machine.

  Victor C. Ferkiss

  Struggle, Mean, Loss

  Victor C. Ferkiss (1969). “Technological Man: The Myth and the Reality”

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• In levying taxes and in shearing sheep, it is well to stop when you get down to the skin.

  Austin O'Malley

  Sheep, Liberty, Skins

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• Given man's nature, freedom will always be in jeopardy, and the only question that need concern each of us is if and how well we took our stand in its defense during the short period of time when we were potentially a part of the struggle.

  Benjamin A. Rogge

  Struggle, Men, Ifs And

  Benjamin A. Rogge (1979). “Can Capitalism Survive?”, Liberty Fund

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• The same government that brought you urban renewal is likely to make an even worse mess of suburban renewal.

  Steven F. Hayward

  Urban Renewal, Government, Liberty

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• Giving a politician access to your wallet is like giving a dog access to your refrigerator.

  Tim Barber

  Dog, Giving, Political

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• Libertarianism is what you probably already believe: Libertarian values are American values. Libertarianism is America's heritage of liberty, patriotism and honest work to build a future for your family. It's the idea that being free and independent is a great way to live. That each of us is a unique individual, with great potential. That you own yourself, and that you have the right to decide what's best for you. Americans of all races and creeds built a great and prosperous country with these libertarian ideals. Let's use them to build America's future.

  David Bergland

  Country, Believe, Independent

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• If libertarianism were easy to explain, and it weren't easy to exaggerate the effects of libertarianism, I think it would have been done already. Many many very intelligent people have applied themselves to crafting an agenda that people could grab ahold of. But the problem of course is that libertarianism isn't political. It is kind of anti-political. It wants to take a lot of things out of the political arena.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Intelligent, Thinking, People

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• The average family pays more in taxes than it spends on food, clothing, and shelter combined.

  Dick Armey

  Average, Shelter, Libertarian

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• On the conservative side, today's libertarianism is far more dogmatic and devoid of qualification than the liberalism of Adam Smith or J.S. Mill. Like Marxism, libertarianism is a utopian worldview based on an economic-determinist vision of history. Unlike Marxism, libertarianism is highly specific in its predictions about the transition to the utopian world order, rendering it vulnerable to fact.

  Michael Lind

  Order, Vision, Transition

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• No one doubts that pure libertarianism is simple, but that's just why it remains on the ideological fringe - because it boils down the most difficult questions in human affairs to a simple equation, a What Would the Market Do bumper sticker.

  Ross Douthat

  Simple, Difficult Questions, Doubt

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• A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.

  Isabel Paterson

  Education, Historical, Liberty

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.258, Transaction Publishers

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• Few things are more commonly misunderstood than the nature and meaning of theocracy. It is commonly assumed to be a dictatorial rule by self-appointed men who claim to rule for God. In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.

  R.J. Rushdoony

  Biblical, Reality, Men

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• The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Real, Party, Issues

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.78, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Libertarianism and communism are equally crazy in opposite ways. Libertarians believe that it is possible to privatize everything without anarchy, while communists believe that it is possible to socialize everything without tyranny.

  Michael Lind

  Crazy, Believe, Opposites

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