Quotes About Authority

We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely — those against private citizens or those against itself?

Where the questions concern governmental power in a sovereign nation, it is not possible to select an umpire who is outside government. Every national government, so long as it is a government, must have the final say on its own power.

For this essential acceptance, the majority must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable, and certainly better than other conceivable alternatives. Promoting this ideology among the people is the vital social task of the "intellectuals." For the masses of men do not create their own ideas, or indeed think through these ideas independently; they follow passively the ideas adopted and disseminated by the body of intellectuals.

compare the degree of zeal devoted to pursuing the man who assaults a policeman, with the attention that the State pays to the assault of an ordinary citizen.

The number of men sitting at Atlanta and Leavenworth for revolting against the extortions of the government is always ten times as great as the number of government officials condemned for oppressing the taxpayers to their own gain. (Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy, pp.

For a vivid and entertaining description of the lack of protection for the individual against incursion of his liberty by his "protectors," see H.L. Mencken, "The Nature of Liberty," in Prejudices: A Selection (New York: Vintage Books, 1958), pp. 138–43.

it is surely grotesque to entrust the function of guardian of the public morality to the most extensive criminal (and hence the most immoral) group in society—the State.

If "we are the government," then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also "voluntary" on the part of the individual concerned.

For all governments—but especially democratic governments—must work hard at persuading their subjects that all of their deeds of oppression are really in their subjects' best interests

we are the government," then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also "voluntary" on the part of the individual concerned.

Yet, after all, we are not wedded to a "royal prerogative," and it is the American concept that sovereignty rests, not in government, but in the people.

In the field of justice, man's will is all; men can move mountains, if only men so decide.

Si los humanos son tan malos, ¿cómo podemos esperar que un gobierno coercitivo, compuesto por humanos, mejore la situación?46 Rothbard responde a estos argumentos y a muchos más.47

For States have always needed opinion-moulding intellectuals to con the public into believing that its rule is wise, good, and inevitable; into believing that the "emperor has clothes.

It is curious that people tend to regard government as a quasi-divine, selfless, Santa Claus organization. Government was constructed neither for ability nor for the exercise of loving care; government was built for the use of force and for necessarily demagogic appeals for votes. If individuals do not know their own interests in many cases, they are free to turn to private experts for guidance. It is absurd to say that they will be served better by a coercive, demagogic apparatus.

It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society.

Scratch an egalitarian, and you will inevitably find a statist.

If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as being in a state of impermissible 'anarchy,' why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighborhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?

Taqliding madhhabs is haram, but do taqlid my taqliding of someone taqliding another's opinion against taqliding madhhabs." meta-#wtfiqh

My government will respect the will of the people.

Adam and Eve may have been the first atheists, since they rebelled against the one commandment of God.

All kings will be reincarnated as lions and employees as flocks of sheep.

Birth control methods have no benefit, whatsoever, for the multitude. But they are only useful to the government that wishes to control its small populated nation.

Dictatorship is when the government can easily control and manipulate citizens' demands.