THINGS I WISH I HAD SAID

What is Libertarianism?

Libertarianism is the philosophy which says that you can run your life better than the government can, and you have the right to be left alone in order to do it. -- Anonymous

Other people are not your property. -- Roderick T. Long

A Libertarian Limerick

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who wanted to sell me a bucket,
But he couldn't, because,
There were too many laws,
So he threw up his hands and said, "Vote Libertarian!" -- Anonymous

More Libertarian Poetry

Where Is True Liberty?

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. -- Judge Learned Hand

The Constitution is ink on paper. It doesn't stop injustice. It doesn't enforce itself. And if the ideas expressed in it are not put into practice, what protection does it give anyone? None. Not a shred. -- Larken Rose

If Only I Could Be So Succinct:

If you're going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't. -- Admiral Hyman G. Rickover

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. -- Mao Tse-Tung

I would rather be governed by 2000 people selected at random from the Boston telephone directory, than by the 2000 faculty members at Harvard. -- William F. Buckley (Please forgive any Yale partisanship.)

Those people who are not governed by God will be ruled by tyrants. -- William Penn

Everything the government touches turns to crap. -- Ringo Starr

People riot for two reasons: fun and profit. -- Robert Novak

Beware, Americans, that they who cannot fight you out of your liberties, be not suffered to lie you out of them. -- New Jersey Gazette, July 4th, 1781

Putting uniforms and badges on criminals doesn't make them good. -- Amos Vaden

Most conservatives come to Washington knowing that it's a sewer. The trouble is, most of them wind up treating it like a hot tub. -- Stan Evans

This is supposed to be the land of free enterprise. It seems to be more and more, the land of the government do gooders doing no good! -- Kevin Zahrte

The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants. -- Albert Camus

Live free or die. -- New Hampshire license plate

Television is a drug with a plug. -- Bill Quain

Consensus means that lots of people say collectively what nobody believes individually. -- Abba Eban

If man will only realize that it is unmanly to obey laws that are unjust, no man's tyranny will enslave him. -- Mahatma Gandhi

There is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen. -- Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, at 618 (7th Cir. 1982)

Too many naked emperors, too little time. -- Cat Farmer

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of all who threaten them. -- U.S. Navy recruiting poster

If a politician promises to help you by hamstringing your neighbor, it's a pretty good bet he just told your neighbor the same thing about you! -- Dave Dawson

To commit our children to the care of irreligious people is to commit lambs to the superintendency of wolves. -- Timothy Dwight, President of Yale, 1795-1817

You can not reason a man out of a position he didn't reason himself into in the first place. -- Jonathan Swift

Internet search engines are the bathroom wall of society. -- Greg Duncan

If I can control a nation's money supply, I care not who makes its laws. -- Meyer Rothschild

Government cannot make you richer, but it sure can make you poorer. -- Chuck Bates

Two words you should know if you really want to be an honest journalist: Governments Lie. -- Howard Zinn

The truth must be said, even when saying it may cause a scandal. -- Jose Marti

Zero tolerance equals zero intelligence. -- Tom Gresham

Secular nations have one thing in common -- mass graves. And the reason is that they believe the government is the final arbiter of right and wrong and good and evil. -- Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore

The government that gives a lot, takes a lot. -- David Brownlow

A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves. -- Bertrand de Jouvenal

There should be a sign outside every institution of higher learning saying "Beware: what happens here could be harmful to your life, if you do what we teach you." -- Ron Puryear

There is not a dime's worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats. -- George Wallace

Remember, when Jesus came there were numerous political and religious parties in Israel. Which one of them did he join? -- Warren Baldwin

Freiheit stirbt in kleinen Teilen. (Freedom dies in little pieces.) -- German proverb

Because "we have to do something" is not a reason to do something stupid. -- Taxpayers Against Congestion (opposing the expansion of light rail in Denver)

If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops. -- Kelvin Throop

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our Banking and Monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a Revolution before tomorrow morning. -- Henry Ford

Of two evils choose neither. -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. -- Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.  -- Noam Chomsky

War is the health of the state. -- Randolph Bourne

The more you read the more you realize you don't know anything except for what some guy knew in 1702. -- Dean Kosage

We simply cannot keep the country in readiness to fight an all-out war unless we are willing to turn our country into a garrison state and abandon all [its] ideals of freedom. -- Senator Robert A. Taft (R-Ohio)

Politics is a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. -- Ambrose Bierce

Government programs are the only sign of eternal life on earth. -- Cal Thomas

When the president does it, that means it's not illegal. -- Richard Nixon

Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision. -- Congressman Dick Armey

If ten percent is good enough for Jesus, it ought to be enough for Uncle Sam. -- Ray Stevens

A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer and remains at large. -- Finley Peter Dunne

I think politics is more akin to baseball [than football]. Both teams use the same plate and have the same goals. The only difference is that they want to score while preventing the other team from scoring. -- Al Newberry

The draft is slavery. It is worse than slavery. Forcing a man or woman to work your fields is bad enough, forcing them to kill and die is another. -- Mary Starrett

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I should do and, with the help of God, I will do! -- Nathan Hale

Freedom is strangely ephemeral. It is something like breathing; one only becomes acutely aware of its importance when one is choking. -- William E. Simon

Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex, intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple, stupid behavior. -- Dee Hock, Founder and CEO Emeritus of Visa Corporation

A democratic government that respects no limits on its own power is a ticking time bomb, waiting to destroy the rights it was created to protect. -- James Bovard

Once the government becomes the supplier of people's needs, there is no limit to the needs that will be claimed as a basic right. -- Lawrence Auster

Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Government machinery has been described as a marvelous labor saving device which enables ten men to do the work of one. -- John Maynard Keynes

Okay, joke's over... Bring back the Constitution. -- Lisa Trainor

Americans used to roar like lions for liberty. Now they bleat like sheep for security. -- Norman Vincent Peale

Half of the modern drugs should be thrown out the window, except that the birds might eat them. -- Dr. Martin Henry Fischer

Washington needs adult supervision. -- Senator Barack Obama

There are no aims of education. The aim is education. If—and only if—you seek it…education will find you. -- Andrew Abbott

Truth must count. Innocence must matter. -- Richard Epstein

An unarmed people are subject to slavery at any time. -- Huey Newton

Anyone who believes America is winning the drug war must be high. -- Stephen Littau

The World Wide Web is the only thing I know of whose shortened form takes three times longer to say than its long form. – Douglas Adams

We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality. -- Lord Thomas Macaulay

The world is not the way they tell you it is. -- Adam Smith

The news and truth are not the same thing. -- Walter Lippmann

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant. -- Helen Keller

Fifty men have run America and that's a high figure. -- Joseph Kennedy, Sr.

The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology. -- Michael Parenti

The world is governed by very different personages to what is imagined by those who are not themselves behind the scenes. -- Benjamin Disraeli

Whoever controls the media, controls the (people's) minds. -- Jim Morrison of the Doors

As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government. -- Dave Barry

We federalize everything that walks, talks or moves. -- Senator Joseph Biden

I think the internet is probably going to save this country ... it (and not Sam Colt's revolver) is the Great Equalizer -- one of the most important inventions in history. -- Kevin Tuma

When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. -- Sinclair Lewis

Power is the ability to force compliance with one’s demands; authority is the ability to command voluntary obedience. -- Hannah Arendt

Most Christians would not recognize the harlot of Babylon if she gave them a lap dance. -- James Lloyd

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer

Did you kill these people as an act of self-defense? Were they threatening your life or your family? Were they on your shores, about to enslave you? -- Leonard Read

Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing Freedom of Speech... Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech... -- Cato

Lying is done with words and also with silence. -- Adrienne Rich

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. -- Douglas Casey

If you don't trust gold, do you trust the logic of taking a pine tree, worth $4,000-$5,000, cutting it up, turning it into pulp, putting some ink on it and then calling it one billion dollars? -- Kenneth J. Gerbino

When evil men make bad laws, righteous men disobey them. -- Pastor Butch Paugh

God blessed America, and look what we did with it. -- Donna Marsh O'Connor, whose daughter was killed on 9/11 and who does not at all buy the official lies

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him? -- Blaise Pascal

Torture is no more about learning the truth than rape is about sex. -- Michael Winship

America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within. --Josef Stalin

Japan accomplished far more with Toyota and Panasonic than it did with Pearl Harbor. -- Anonymous

There might be two libertarians somewhere in the world who agree on everything, but I am certainly not one of them. -- Anonymous

Those who beat their swords into plough shares shall plough for those who don't. -- Anonymous

Nothing is more dangerous than an idealist with a machine gun. -- Anonymous

Can't feed'em? Then don't breed'em. -- Anonymous

If you play hard, prepare to pay hard. -- Anonymous

Our freedoms depend on five boxes: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, the witness box, and the cartridge box. -- Anonymous

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life. -- Anonymous

A gun in the hand beats a cop on the phone. -- Anonymous

There's no government like no government. -- Anonymous

Letting lawyers make laws is like letting doctors make diseases. -- Anonymous

A government that can give you everything you want must first take away everything you have. -- Anonymous

It is dangerous to be right when your government is wrong. -- Anonymous

Legalize Freedom: Vote Libertarian. -- Anonymous

The Constitution is the Contract with America. -- Anonymous

There may be two libertarians in the world who agree on absolutely everything, but I am not one of them. -- Anonymous

God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. -- Anonymous

Hetero is bettero. -- Anonymous

186,000 miles per second. It's not just a good idea, IT'S THE LAW! -- Anonymous

My freedom is more important than your great idea. -- Anonymous

If you can remember the sixties, you weren't there. -- Anonymous

Ignorance of my rights is no excuse. -- Anonymous

When dildos are outlawed, only outlaws will have dildos. -- Anonymous

The Supreme Court is a constitutional convention in perpetual session. -- Anonymous

If you're happy and you know it, clank your chains. -- Anonymous

The study of politics is the most superficial of the social sciences. -- Anonymous

Economics without private property is like football without rules. -- Anonymous

Those who trade principle for power are pragmatists, and are slaves to whatever group of incompetents who will trade a vote for a chain, as long as they are empowered by it. -- Anonymous

Little minds control. Littler minds obey. -- Anonymous

If you stand for nothing you will fall for anything. -- Anonymous

The worst kind of liberal is a liberal who talks like a conservative. -- Anonymous

George W. Bush and John Ashcroft are the Blues Brothers: They are on a mission from God. -- Anonymous

Love your country, but fear your government. -- Anonymous

Save a kid. Shoot your television. -- Anonymous

Fear is a weapon of mass destruction. -- Anonymous

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy? -- Anonymous

Nothing can defend a society against its top 100,000 people. -- Anonymous

Selecting the lesser of two evils is like selecting the best turd in the toilet. -- Anonymous

Jesus didn't ride into town on an elephant. -- Anonymous

Bipartisanship: I'll hug your elephant if you kiss my ass. -- Anonymous (Lest anyone be offended, this term is used dozens of times in the King James Bible to refer to a not-too-horribly-brilliant beast of burden.)

The conspiratorial view of history is also the Biblical view of history. Try Psalms 2 for starters. -- Anonymous

Saying that guns cause crime is like saying that cameras cause pornography. -- Anonymous

A small group of people hijacked baseball and turned it into a pharmaceutical arms race. -- Anonymous

One of the great paradoxes of Communism is that when everybody owns everything, nobody owns anything. -- Anonymous

If you will believe absurdities, you will commit atrocities. -- Anonymous

God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts. -- Anonymous

Fiat currency works about as well as the Fiat automobile. -- Anonymous

Voting rights: gone with the push of a button. -- Anonymous

Don't get God started. -- Anonymous

Two from Harry Browne

Government doesn't work. -- Harry Browne

Would you give up your favorite government program if you never again had to pay income tax? -- Harry Browne

When They Came...

In  Germany , they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.  
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.  
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Trade Unionist.  
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.  
Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up. -- Reverend Dr. Martin Niemoeller  

When they came for the Fifth Amendment,
I did not say anything because I had done nothing wrong.
When they came for the Fourth Amendment,
I did not say anything because I had nothing to hide,
When they came for the Second Amendment,
I did not say anything because I did not own a gun,
When they came for the First Amendment,
I could not say anything. -- Anonymous

An update of this concept, with the  United States in mind, would go like this:
First they burned the house of the Symbionese Liberation Army and killed all of their members. Most of us did not object because we did not believe in the same things as the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Then they dropped a bomb on the building of the Philadelphia MOVE group, and destroyed two city blocks, and killed 11 members. Most of us did not object because we did not believe in the same things as the MOVE group.
Then they burned a house to kill Gordon Kahl, a tax protester, and killed him. Most of us did not object because we did not believe in the same things as Gordon Kahl.
Then they burned a house to kill Robert Matthews, leader of "The Order," and killed him. Most of us did not object because we did not believe in the same things as Robert Matthews.
Then they conducted a siege and a raid of 80-member Covenant of the Sword and Arm of the Lord religious group. Most of us did not object because we did not believe in the same things as the Covenant of the Sword and Arm of the Lord.
Then they conducted a siege and a raid of Randy Weaver's family, and killed or wounded nearly everyone present; even including a baby and the dog. Many of us did not object because we did not believe in the same things as Randy Weaver's family.
Then they burned the church of the Branch Davidians and killed nearly all of them. A few of us did not object because we did not believe in the same things as the Branch Davidians.
And then they kidnapped Elian Gonzalez ... -- John Perna 

Eight from Ben Franklin

In the beginning of the Contest with Great. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel. -- Benjamin Franklin

Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power. -- Benjamin Franklin

There never was a good war or a bad peace. -- Benjamin Franklin

A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins. -- Benjamin Franklin

A republic, if you can keep it. -- Benjamin Franklin, when he was asked whaat kind of government the Framers of the Constitution had given us.

Five from Mark Twain

I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific ...Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? ... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves. But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. -- Mark Twain

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. -- Mark Twain

What if you were an idiot, and what if you were a member of Congress? But I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain

Two from Robert Heinlein

An armed society is a polite society. -- Robert Heinlein

Two from Plato

The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs, is to be ruled by evil men. -- Plato

Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. -- Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.

This impostor, this detestable fraud and rapist and murderer, is American nationalism. It births its crimes in a flag, baptizes them with the anthems of bands, and seals them with 21-gun salutes and the rantings of wealthy demagogues who have come no closer to a battlefield than a television camera or studio microphone.

This impostor is not patriotism, though it would pervert that too. The patriot says, "I love my country," works for its good, and defends it if necessary – against enemies within and without. He strives and prays not primarily that God will bless his country, but that his country will bless God. The nationalist, meanwhile, says, "My country is better than yours." "My country is the greatest there has ever been." "The greatest nation on God’s green earth." "They hate my country because it is so good." -- John Dwyer

Bailouts Backfire

I see the Senate passed the deadbeat homebuyer and Wall-street corrupt banker bailout bill.

This marks the beginning of the end for this country. Today, the government said that instead of rewarding hard work and savings, we are going to reward debt and irresponsible spending. Instead of figuring out how to reform government and Wall Street, the government said that we can print money and spend our way out of this problem. Today, the government said that the same thing that got us into this mess -- easy credit and spending - will get us out of this mess.

It won't work and we will all be poorer for it.  Next year, there will be another bill asking for another $700B.  We have spent, borrowed, and printed our way into oblivion. Our fate is sealed. Like Daniel's handwriting on the wall, God has numbered this kingdom and finished it. -- RD

To Be Governed

To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first world of compliant, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality. -- P.J. Proudhon

Oh Yes It Can Happen Here

Two from Frank Zappa

The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. -- Frank Zappa

Two from Andrew Jackson

Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out. -- Andrew Jackson

Two from Edward R. Murrow

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -- Edward R. Murrow

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular. -- Edward R. Murrow

Four from Phil Murphy

We have no national conscience anymore. It was bought out in a hostile takeover after we began to downsize our morality. -- Phil Murphy

Whether it's refusing to show Oskar Schindler arming "his" Jews or digitally doctoring "ET" by removing all of the agents' sidearms, Steven Spielberg is constantly selling us revisionist history. I'm certain "Pol Pot: The Musical" will be his next feature film. -- Phil Murphy

Paper buys time. Steel buys freedom. -- Phil Murphy

A personal note to the Founding Fathers: We're sorry. We blew it. You made it possible for us to live free and we blew it. We've given up nearly every personal liberty in the name of a false sense of security sold to the masses by the same type of maniacal government about which you warned us and against which you fought so bravely. We now have to ask permission to take a leak on an airline flight. We never deserved you. -- Phil Murphy, 7/4/2002

Two from Will Rogers

The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets. -- Will Rogers

Generals Should Know

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military- industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. -- General Dwight David Eisenhower, 1961 Farewell Address

Two from General Robert E. Lee

I believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people … are the safeguard to the continuance of a free government … whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it . -- General Robert E. Lee

Two from Thomas Sowell

Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from. -- Thomas Sowell

If They Did to Animals what They Do to Humans

Three from Eric Hoffer

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true. -- Eric Hoffer

Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. -- Eric Hoffer

Two from Franklin D. Roosevelt

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Two Views of History

There are two views of history
1: History happens by accident or
2: It is planned.
The general public is taught that history happens by accident. However, the upper echelons know that history is planned. -- R.E. McMaster, Jr.

Politics in a Nutshell

The Cross & the Sword

Six from Lew Rockwell

To rule is to destroy. -- Lew Rockwell

With this comes a belligerent and blind nationalism that has affected the whole culture in one degree or another. But then, in an empire, the people must become "hollow dummies," said Orwell. They must believe they are superior to others, and have a right to tell others what to do. Americans seem to go beyond even this. They believe that other countries actually want to be invaded and occupied and shaped into mini-Americans by the United States. All we have to do is "get their dictators off their backs, and the men will start building shopping malls and the women dressing like Britney Spears." -- Lew Rockwell

The modern institution of the presidency is the primary political evil Americans face, and the cause of nearly all our woes. It squanders the national wealth and starts unjust wars against foreign peoples that have never done us any harm. It wrecks our families, tramples on our rights, invades our communities, and spies on our bank accounts. It skews the culture toward decadence and trash. It tells lie after lie. Teachers used to tell school kids that anyone can be president. This is like saying anyone can go to Hell. It’s not an inspiration; it’s a threat.

The presidency – by which I mean the executive State – is the sum total of American tyranny. The other branches of government, including the presidentially appointed Supreme Court, are mere adjuncts. The presidency insists on complete devotion and humble submission to its dictates, even while it steals the products of our labor and drives us into economic ruin. It centralizes all power unto itself, and crowds out all competing centers of power in society, including the church, the family, business, charity, and the community. I’ll go further. The US presidency is the world’s leading evil. It is the chief mischief-maker in every part of the globe, the leading wrecker of nations, the usurer behind Third-World debt, the bailer-out of corrupt governments, the hand in many dictatorial gloves, the sponsor and sustainer of the New World Order, of wars, interstate and civil, of famine and disease. To see the evils caused by the presidency, look no further than Iraq or Serbia, where the lives of innocents were snuffed out in pointless wars, where bombing was designed to destroy civilian infrastructure and cause disease, and where women, children, and the aged have been denied essential food and medicine because of a cruel embargo. Look at the human toll taken by the presidency, from Dresden and Hiroshima to Waco and Ruby Ridge, and you see a prime practitioner of murder by government. -- Lew Rockwell

I will gladly pile the bodies high in Iran, Obama told government officials in Israel, to protect your nuclear monopoly. I will obliterate homes, businesses, charities, mosques, whole towns and cities. I will kill babies, children, women, men, the sick and the elderly. I will tear them limb from limb, and laugh as they die in agony. I will create cripples in huge numbers. I will even unleash the radioactive lightning of my terrible swift sword, if the Iranians do not bow to my imperial will, and be subservient and vulnerable.

Of course, that is NOT what Obama said. He said "no option is off the table." But that is what he meant. -- Lew Rockwell

Eight from George Washington

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. -- George Washington

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government. -- George Washington

When firearms go, all goes -- we need them every hour. -- George Washington

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. -- George Washington

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government. -- George Washington

Three from William Norman Grigg

Granted, there is one thing Bush could do to help roll back tyranny. He could resign immediately and surrender himself to be prosecuted for his crimes against our Constitution. His trial could wait until after he had brought our troops home and personally visited the home of every family – American, ally, or Iraqi – that has been deprived of a child or a parent to plead, on his knees, for their forgiveness.

But we already know, from both his words and his gestures, what the man thinks of those of us upon whom he has built his throne. -- William Norman Grigg

Question: If a cannibal says grace, does the prayer sanctify his meal? -- William Norman Grigg

Philosopher Hannah Arendt, one of the most astute analysts of totalitarianism, observed: “Power is the ability to force compliance with one’s demands; authority is the ability to command voluntary obedience.”

As Mark 1:22 recounts, Jesus taught His disciples “as one having authority....” As God Incarnate, Jesus certainly had the power to compel compliance, but He chose instead to exercise authority by teaching and exemplifying what the Epistle of James called “The Perfect Law of Liberty.”

In a free society, power is used only to protect the persons, property, and rights of the innocent, and then only after an appeal to authority fails. In contemporary America, however, practically every social institution has become infected with the plague of power, with the State claiming the role of enforcing “laws” regulating behavior, speech, and even individual attitudes.

We suffer from a surfeit of power, and a critical lack of legitimate authority – and a growing inability on the part of Americans to distinguish between the two. -- William Norman Grigg

Creeping Taxes

Civil Liberties and Bumper Stickers

Destroying civil liberties is like letting the terrorists win. -- From a bumper sticker

Oh, well. I wasn't using my civil liberties anyway. -- From a bumper sticker

Ignore your rights and they will go away. -- From a bumper sticker

The Only Purpose of Power

Void for Vagueness

Four from Fred Reed

Without men, civilization would last until the oil needed changing. -- Fred Reed

Now, any time I refer to the United States as a democracy, I get mail, from people vaguely remembering high-school civics, who tell me that the US is not a democracy but a constitutional republic. In fact is neither. A democracy is of course any governmental system in which ultimate power rests with the people; direct democracies, parliamentary democracies, and constitutional republics are all examples of democracy. In America, the people are nearly powerless, in large part without knowing it. The trick has been done by giving them furiously fought elections that don’t mean anything. This distracts them and gives them a sense of participation, while maintaining their proper role as consumers.

The United States is not the country it thinks it is. It moves fast toward a curious comfortable despotism. This is of course precisely what people want. -- Fred Reed

On examination, most of the measures purportedly taken to stifle Terror don’t. Opening mail without a warrant? It’s pointless once the terrorists know you are doing it, but effective in intimidating honest citizens. The same is true of warrantless wiretaps and searches. Does the gutting of habeas corpus make us safer against terrorists? Or merely suppress dissent by citizens?

The whole business looks remarkably like malign vaudeville, like mummery intended to accomplish two things. The first is to persuade the foolish that the nation is At War. Actually only the president is at war. The second, and I would like to be wrong about this, is to train the public to obedience. The formula is simple: Keep’em scared and you can do anything. It works. Americans are rapidly becoming accustomed to Soviet-style surveillance, to the state’s power to search and spy without restraint, to being barked at and ordered about by low-level federal employees. People deserve what they tolerate. -- Fred Reed

Two from Albert Jay Nock

So it strikes me that instead of sweating blood over the iniquity of foreign States, my fellow-citizens would do a great deal better by themselves to make sure that the American State is not strong enough to carry out the like iniquities here. The stronger the American State is allowed to grow, the higher its record of criminality will grow, according to its opportunities and temptations. If, then, instead of devoting energy, time, and money to warding off wholly imaginary and fanciful dangers from criminals thousands of miles away, our people turn their patriotic fervor loose on the only source from which danger can proceed, they will be doing their full duty by their country. -- Albert Jay Nock

Three from George Bernard Shaw

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. -- George Bernard Shaw

Englishmen will never be slaves. They are free to do whatever the government and public opinion allow them to do. -- George Bernard Shaw

Who Really Governs?

Shortly after our return to America the New York Times sent a reporter to ask me the names of the "rulers of America." Sitting in my office that afternoon, I gave the reporter a list. They amounted finally to fifty-two, and of course, as Ferdinand Lundberg says in his book Sixty Families, it was quite evident that I added some personal friends to the list.... Of course my list of "rulers" referred to economic headship, but it was taken generally to mean the men who ruled America not only economically but politically. -- James Gerard

Eight from Chuck Baldwin

Instead, pro-war neo-cons sit in their comfortable, air-conditioned offices and send other husbands, other wives, other parents, other children, other people to incur the "scourge" of war. But the neo-cons who trumpet war, who promote war, and who finance war never actually experience war. -- Chuck Baldwin

Ladies and gentlemen, please wake up! Under the leadership of President George W. Bush, rights and freedoms that have been lost to you include your right to an attorney, your right to know the charges being levied against you, the right to a speedy trial, the right to trial by a jury of your peers, the right to not be subjected to torture, the right to not have your home and personal items searched and seized without warrant, the right to not have your personal conversations (including letters and email) intercepted without court order, and the right to not incriminate yourself, just to name a few. And now we learn that our government has authorized and is planning to build "concentration camp facilities."

When is the last time you heard a sermon on hell or judgment? When is the last time you heard a preacher call sin by its first name? Most notable mega-churches proudly say that they never use the word "sinner." Lost, unredeemed souls are now called "pre-Christian" people. Words such as "repentance" have been removed from the vocabulary of the average pulpit in America today.

Yet, without sin and judgment, there is no grace and forgiveness. Without hell, there is no heaven. No repentance, no faith. No wrath, no mercy. No cross, no crown. No conviction, no Holy Spirit. No serpent, no Paradise. No transgression, no Gospel. -- Chuck Baldwin

G. W. Bush is an elected politician. He was elected President of these United States. Nothing more; nothing less. He has no more divine "anointing" than any other elected politician.

Where was all this "anointing" talk when Bill Clinton was elected President? The same God that permitted Bush to become President permitted Clinton to become President. Yet, Christian conservatives called Clinton the Anti-Christ, whereas they now want to add Bush to the Holy Trinity. -- Chuck Baldwin

Did Moses violate God's principle of submission to authority when he killed the Egyptian taskmaster in defense of his fellow Hebrew? Did Elijah violate God's principle of submission to authority when he openly challenged Ahab and Jezebel? Did David violate God's principle of submission to authority when he refused to surrender to Saul's troops? Did Daniel violate God's principle of submission to authority when he disobeyed the king's law to not pray audibly to God? Did the three Hebrew children violate God's principle of submission to authority when they refused to bow to the image of the state? Did John the Baptist violate God's principle of submission to authority when he publicly scolded King Herod for his infidelity? Did Simon Peter and the other Apostles violate God's principle of submission to authority when they refused to stop preaching on the streets of Jerusalem? Did Paul violate God's principle of submission to authority when he refused to obey those authorities who demanded that he abandon his missionary work? In fact, Paul spent almost as much time in jail as he did out of jail.

Remember that every apostle of Christ (except John) was killed by hostile civil authorities opposed to their endeavors. Christians throughout church history were imprisoned, tortured, or killed by civil authorities of all stripes for refusing to submit to their various laws and prohibitions. Did all of these Christian martyrs violate God's principle of submission to authority?

So, even the great prophets, apostles, and writers of the Bible (including the writer of Romans Chapter 13) understood that human authority--even civil authority--is limited. -- Chuck Baldwin

The Scourge of War

Two from Chief Justice John Marshall

The power to tax is the power to destroy. -- Chief Justice John Marshall

The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void ... unconstitutional law bears no power to enforce, it purports to settle as if it never existed, for unconstitutionality dates from the enactment of such a law and not such time as branded in an open court of law ... it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed. No courts are bound to uphold it and no persons are bound to obey it. 16 Am Jur 256. (and)

...[W]hat shall be the supreme law of the land...only laws that are made in pursuance of the constitution have that rank...All laws repugnant to the Constitution are void of law. -- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison 5 US 137 at Sec. 180, (1803)

It's the Stupidity, Stupid!

You cannot legislate stupidity. -- Jesse "The Governing Body" Ventura

If 50 million people say a stupid thing, it's still a stupid thing. -- David Severn

The two most common commodities in the universe are nitrogen and stupidity. -- Anonymous

Life is tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid. -- John Wayne

Decision Time

Two from George Carlin

I think I figured out why Americans are so stupid. Think about how stupid the Average American is. Well, HALF of 'em are stupider than THAT! -- George Carlin

Three from Albert Einstein

Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. And I am not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.-- Albert Einstein

The Price You Pay

Two from Walter Williams

Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We're working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we've fallen easy prey to charlatans, quacks, and hustlers. -- Walter Williams

The liberal civil rights establishment is the Klan with a tan. -- Walter Williams

Three from Michael Badnarik

The Constitution: It's not just a good idea, IT'S THE LAW! -- Michael Badnarik

On September 11, America was attacked by terrorists. On September 12, the American people became suspects. -- Michael Badnarik

People are usually surprised to discover that I hate the phrase "constitutional rights." I hate the phrase because it is terribly misleading. Most of the people who say it or hear it have the impression that the Constitution "grants" them their rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strictly speaking it is the Bill of Rights that enumerates our rights, but none of our founding documents bestow anything on you at all [...] The government can burn the Constitution and shred the Bill of Rights, but those actions wouldn't have the slightest effect on the rights you've always had. -- Michael Badnarik

The Most Basic Right of All

The right of self-defense is founded in the law of nature, and is not, nor can be, superseded by any law of society. If your enemy or oppressor has a bomb, then get yourself a bomb. -- Sir Michael Foster

Two from Louis Brandeis

The makers of the Constitution conferred, as against the government, the Right to be left alone; the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men. -- United States Supreme Court Justice Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States (1928)

Fools and Traitors

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Litmus Test for Freedom

Six from Vin Suprynowicz

A well-regulated population being necessary to the security of a police state, the right of the Government to keep and destroy arms shall not be infringed. -- Vin Suprynowicz

A few fans of totalitarianism, having been coached by the slyest of lawyers and union schoolmarms, will point out that the preamble to the Constitution advises us the purpose of the document is to "promote the general welfare," whereupon they will contend this plainly means the Congress is allowed to enact any law and do anything which a temporary majority of the two houses shall determine tends to "promote the general welfare."

But if that were the case, surely the whole document need take up only 28 words: "The Congress may enact any law which the majority of both houses shall determine to their own satisfaction tends to 'promote the general welfare'; have a nice day." -- Vin Suprynowicz

Pretend with me that you’re an old German on your deathbed today. Would you rather tell your grandchildren, "I voted for the Nazis because they seemed better than the Communists and no other party could win"? Wouldn’t you rather be able to rise up and say, "I publicly denounced the Nazis and the Communists? We were a minority – 1 or 2 percent – but we stood up for the truth and we were right! We proved not all Germans were mindless torchbearers for tyranny! We were ridiculed, we were beaten and jailed, but we saved this nation’s soul. Now children, go and live your lives in a way to make me proud"? -- Vin Suprynowicz

First, not voting is OK. Choosing the new ruler who will decide how much of our money and property to "allow" us to keep from among two or three Republicrat lawyers who've already piled up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of obligations to the big developers, law firms and casinos resembles assisted suicide.

Which candidate on Tuesday's ballots would close the compulsory government youth propaganda camps (cutting our tax burdens in half, setting our children free to apprentice in useful trades and mature at a far earlier age, allowing a return to the kind of real literacy demonstrated by folks like Ben Franklin, who quit school at 10)? Which would sue the federal government for claiming to "own" most of Nevada, throw out all the unconstitutional gun laws and re-legalize all medicinal plant extracts? Not a one. -- Vin Suprynowicz

If we have two different major parties, tell me which one, placed in power, would quickly end the War on Drugs; pull our troops out of 103 nations overseas; restore the Second Amendment right to own a machine gun without having to sign your name or show a photo ID; end the actuarially bankrupt and constitutionally unauthorized Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Ponzi schemes; shut down the Federal Reserve Board and put us back on a sound, non-inflating dollar made of gold and/or silver. Tell me which one would declare that children belong to their parents, shutting down the state "Child Protection" kidnapping racket (kids have been kidnapped and killed for an offense as minor as mom not "getting them their shots" -- see Cameron Justin Demery, Oct. 14, 1996) and the vastly expensive Government Youth Propaganda Camps which are dumbing down our children into quasi-literate sociopaths.

That would be "change." And the One Party has none to offer. -- Vin Suprynowicz

Tyrants Near and Far

Why They Hate Us

Two from Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Consent of the Governed, One More Time

Three from P.J. O'Rourke

If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it is free. -- P.J. O'Rourke

The drug war has also taken a toll on an institution that's even more noble and venerated than our wallet. Drug-control zealotry has led to what constitutional scholar Roger Pilon calls "the drug exception to the Bill of Rights":

I. Freedom of religion - except for religions involving peyote.

II. Right to keep and bear arms - except when you point one at ninja-dressed members of a SWAT team that breaks through the wrong door at 3 A.M.

III. Quartering soldiers in our houses - to be fair, I haven't noticed any soldiers actually in the house, but some National Guard helicopters have been hovering over my backyard marijuana patch.

IV. No unreasonable searches and seizures - except mandatory random piss tests.

V. No self-incrimination - except that urine in the bottle.

VI. Right to counsel - except if the government suspects your lawyer is being paid with drug money.

VII. Right to trial by jury - except in the case of RICO property forfeitures.

VIII. No cruel or unusual punishments - except to those caught selling 'shroorns at rock concerts.

IX. The enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny others - except when it looks like you might have drugs in your car.

X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved for the DEA. -- P.J. O'Rourke

Just Like the Moth and the Flame

Five from Al Cronkrite

As I stand in the grocery store line and watch the person in front of me pay with food stamps it always strikes me that the vote of such a person will cancel mine.  Democracy is a charade! -- Al Cronkrite

Essays attempting to inform a complacent and unteachable citizenry about their loss of freedom and impending subjection to a despotic state no longer serve a utilitarian purpose; tyranny is already functional in America. Those who wield the power are bent on enslaving the world, puny protests mean nothing to them and those who are subjected to the power have proved to be beyond redemption. -- Al Cronkrite

I am always amazed at the belligerence of church going, ostensibly Christian Americans. Many support wars that involve bombing innocent women and children and believe that all inmates of our prisons deserve to be tortured. I receive numerous favorable comments on the tough prison policies of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Read about Joe Arpaio here.) There are hundreds of thousands of Americans who support the War in Iraq. They believe it is our right to invade a nation that never threatened us and occupy a land that does not belong to us. The monstrous evil of killing masses of innocent civilians in the process evades them. They have lost all affinity for God’s Laws and are quick to bring their sinful judgment to bear on others.

Falling into the jurisdiction of the United States legal system puts a defendant at the mercy of circumstances that involve a host of considerations other then guilt or innocence and a conviction, though it may be unjust, is almost impossible to reverse. -- Al Cronkrite

President George W. Bush has arguably been the worst president in United States history.  He has allowed a group of secular Zionist intellectuals to commandeer our government, sullied our image by supporting torture and aggressive warfare, engineered the potential collapse of the dollar by creating more debt than any other regime in history, peppered his administration with homosexuals, prayed to foreign gods, lied to the people, exported our industry, diminished our standard of living, abolished Posse Comitatus, allowed our infrastructure to collapse, siphoned our wealth to foreign nations, passed tyrannical laws, and through it all has swaggered like a third world dictator.

President George W. Bush, like the infamous leader of the Third Reich, received much of his support from rightwing Christians. -- Al Cronkrite

Democrats and Republicans

Democrats want government to be your mommy. Republicans want government to be your daddy. Libertarians think you are an adult and want government to treat you as such. -- Anonymous

Democrats can never get any sleep because they are afraid somebody somewhere is making too much money. Republicans can never get any sleep because they are afraid somebody somewhere is having too much fun. -- Anonymous

Make no mistake, the Democratic Party is corrupted beyond redemption, but the Republican Party can be even more dangerous, in that it combines deceptive rhetoric with fascist law enforcement... The Republicans sound like Libertarians, but they work like Fascists. -- Lexrex

Our Post-9/11 Soul

The Drug War Doesn't Work

Democracies and Republics

In a democracy, two wolves and a sheep take a majority vote on what's for supper. In a constitutional republic, the wolves are forbidden on voting on what's for supper, and the sheep are well armed. -- Anonymous

The Perils of Democracy

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency;
From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
-- Alexander Fraser Tyler, Scottish economist, 1776

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people. -- Oscar Wilde

The Perils of Conformity

Democracy, Socialism and Communism

Democracy is indispensable to Socialism. -- V. I. Lenin

Democracy is the road to Socialism. -- Karl Marx

The goal of Socialism is Communism. -- V. I. Lenin

Communism is Socialism in a hurry. -- V. I. Lenin

The Truth about Taxes

America Has No Free Press

The Lesser of Two Evils

Some people tell me that the reality is that one of the two major parties is going to win each major election. God gave us free will (Genesis -- the apple...) -- the ability to choose ggood or evil. Do these people really want to stand before their maker and explain to him that the candidate they really thought best to govern them didn't have a chance, so they voted for the lesser of two evils? If we continue to vote for the lesser of two evils, we still vote for evil. And what does that make us as a country? Let's all start voting for who we "really" want in office - and stop telling everyone else that they're throwing their vote away if they don't vote for the lesser of two evils. -- Richard Randall

Be Vigilant

Liberaler and Liberaler

The chief liberal gains in the past generally remain on the statute books when the conservatives recover power...liberalism grows constantly more liberal, and by the same token, conservatism grows constantly less conservative. -- Arthur Schlesinger

Six from Thomas Paine

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated. -- Thomas Paine

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. -- Thomas Paine

In America, the law is King. For as in absolute governments, the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. -- Thomas Paine

Six from Ronald Reagan

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. -- Ronald Reagan

Even many of us who believe in free enterprise have fallen into the habit of saying when something goes wrong: "There ought to be a law." Sometimes I think there ought to be a law against saying there ought to be a law. -- Ronald Reagan

The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution. -- Ronald Reagan

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. -- Ronald Reagan

I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.

It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government."

This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government