Quotes from David Boaz

Each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.

It's the exercise of power, not the exercise of freedom, that requires justification.

The people who benefit from the existing system won't willingly downsize government even if all the customers desert it.

the political left, would argue that the "right to life" means that everyone has a fundamental right to the necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter, medical care, maybe even an eight-hour day and two weeks of vacation. But if the right to life means that, then it means that one person has a right to force other people to give him things, violating their equal rights.

Some forms of socialism and collectivism are – explicitly or implicitly – based on the notion that many people are not competent to make decisions about their own lives, so that the more talented should make decisions for them. But that would mean there were no universal human rights, only rights that some have and others do not, denying the essential humanity of those who are deemed to be owned.

3. We believe that people spend their own money more prudently than they spend other people's money. So goods and services produced in the competitive marketplace are likely to be produced more efficiently and with more regard for real consumer demand than goods produced by government, and thus we should try to keep as many aspects of life as possible outside the control of government.

the most important factor in America's economic future—in raising everyone's standard of living—is not land, or money, or computers; it's human talent.

Those who claim to believe in liberal principals but advocate more and more confiscation of the wealth created by productive people, more and more exceptions to property rights and the rule of law, more and more transfer of power from society to state, are unwittingly engaged in the ultimately deadly undermining of civilization.

Karl Popper once said that attempts to create heaven on earth invariably produce hell.

As a moral matter, individuals must be free to make their own decisions and to succeed or fail according to their own choices. As a practical matter, as Frum points out, when we shield people from the consequences of their actions, we get a society characterized not by thrift, sobriety, diligence, self-reliance, and prudence but by profligacy, intemperance, indolence, dependency, and indifference to consequences.

When rights become merely legal claims attached to interests and preferences, the stage is set for political and social conflict.

Slower growth and the increasing perception that rewards are handed out by government on the basis of political pull, rather than earned in the competitive marketplace, encourage polarization and social conflict.

Every state and national capitol should have a sign on the door: Stop me before I legislate again.

1. Privatize government services 2. Reduce government spending, borrowing, and taxing 3. Deregulate the market process and stop protecting established businesses from the rigors of competition 4. Restore to individuals the right to make the important decisions in their lives

Only when government begins to hand out rewards on the basis of political pressure do we find ourselves involved in group conflict, pushed to organize and contend with other groups for a piece of political power.

Today, when a new federal law is proposed, many libertarian-minded people on both the right and the left look to the Bill of Rights to see whether the law would violate any constitutional rights. But we should look first to the enumerated powers to see if the federal government has been granted the power to undertake the proposed action. Only if it has such a power should we move on to ask whether its proposed action would violate any protected right.

Karl Popper once said that attempts to create heaven on earth invariably produce hell. Libertarianism holds out the goal not of a perfect society but of a better and freer one. It

Every time local politicians propose to tax people in order to build a stadium for a billionaire major-league owner, they hold out in their right hand the promise that the increased business activity will more than replace the money spent. But they don't want you to look at the left hand—the jobs and wealth created by the money that people would have spent if it hadn't been taxed away for the stadium. •

Conservatives want to be your daddy, telling you what to do and what not to do. Liberals want to be your mommy, feeding you, tucking you in, and wiping your nose. Libertarians want to treat you as an adult.

every government intervention in the marketplace tends to reduce wealth and the overall standard of living.

Yet today, all over the developed world, welfare states are on shaky ground. The tax rates necessary to sustain the massive transfer programs are crippling Western economies. Dependence

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Thus

A Government is not free to do as it pleases…. The law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others.

The fatal conceit of intellectuals, he said, is to think that smart people can design an economy or a society better than the apparently chaotic interactions of millions of people. Such intellectuals fail to realize how much they don't know or how a market makes use of all the localized knowledge each of us possesses.