Quotes About Government

People need to have faith in their government." Decker said, "Well, maybe the government might want to consider earning that faith.

In his previous career with the federal government he'd adopted false identities and traveled across the world. Fortunately, changing identities was stunningly easy to do in the computer age. A few clicks of the Dell, a server somewhere in India hummed, and from one's fancy laser printer out popped a new you with all the official bells, whistles and available credit.

As opposed to what? A country run by old white billionaires and their paid lackeys in Washington?

Mississippi's constitution prohibited anyone who denied the existence of a supreme being from holding state office.

Not in the press, no. It would cause more trouble than is warranted. People need to have faith in their government.

Then the man himself appeared. Carter Gray was looking chunkier than usual. From his sniper's post Stone instantly discerned why: body armor. That didn't bother Stone in the slightest since, as he'd told Finn, he always aimed for the head. People couldn't survive without a brain. Although it did seem that more than a few people in Washington managed to do so quite nicely.

few governmental institutions are more misunderstood and feared out of ignorance than the Federal Reserve Board.

really could sell the U.S. military $12,000 toilets and $9,000 hammers and actually get away with it under a mountain of legal trickery and congressional hearing mumbo-jumbo.

All doors opened for the leader of the free world and he strode into the White House like he owned it. Which unofficially he did. Though financed by the American taxpayers, it was really his house, his chopper, his jumbo jet. No one got to come for a visit or go for a ride if he didn't say it was okay.

Okay, the State Department has been on the horn to their counterparts in Moscow. They are disavowing all knowledge of any of this.

While it was true that the president of the United States was the world's ultimate juggler of tasks, it was also a fact that the First Lady, traditionally, was no slouch in that department either.

americanus legalis cannibalis

When the First Amendment was finally approved, it contained two separate clauses on religion, each with an independent scope of action. The first clause (called the Establishment Clause) prohibited the federal government from establishing a single national denomination; the second clause (called the Free Exercise Clause) prohibited the federal government from interfering with the people's public religious expressions and acknowledgments.

History repeatedly demonstrates that all governments that do not have comprehensive internal safeguards and restraints accounting for the inherent "depravity of man" will eventually become selfish, corrupt, oppressive, and then tyrannical.

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.

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.

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. •