Quotes About Government

No, Mr. Khrushchev, you may not have a wall. It will not prove that communism works. It will not work out well at all.

Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had 600 billion at my disposal, I'd be irresponsible, too.

The whole notion, the whole concept of individual liberty is gone. The whole concept of limited government is gone. The whole concept of the Bill of Rights, the whole concept that the purpose of the Constitution is to limit the government, not limit the people. If you're on the verge of thinking we're losing that, then to me, that's it. That's ballgame. That's nutshell.

What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.

The real issue, as far as Democrats are concerned, is the number of people receiving something from the government. This is exactly what Franklin Delano Roosevelt had in mind when he created this monster. And Clinton is planning to expand it beyond Roosevelt's wildest dreams.

The way liberals are interpreting the First Amendment today is that it prevents anyone who is religious from being in government. They say that violates the prohibition against church and state.

If you feed them, if you feed the children, three square meals a day during the school year, how can you expect them to feed themselves in the summer? Wanton little waifs and serfs dependent on the State. Pure and simple.

The Eighties proved we don't need liberals.

This is so classic. Government comes along under the guise of fairness, fixes something, gonna make it fair, gonna make it equal, gonna make it affordable, maybe even make it free. What they end up doing is blowing it all to hell, screwing it up worse than it's ever been screwed up, then their voters bellyache and complain about it. And the same Democrats come back and demand that something be done, because their voters need a second chance.

At some point this blackmail has got to be stopped, and blackmail is what this is. The media and the Democrats threatening the Republicans: if you don't pass this bill the way we want, we're gonna blame you for the shutdown of the department or the shutdown of the government. That's blackmail.

"Well, Rush, look what happened? 9/11 happened, and we didn't know it in advance. That's right, we got hit, we got hit big time. We need a new agency to make sure it doesn't happen again, Rush." And that was the excuse for starting Department of Homeland Security. The government grows and grows and grows and grows, and what do we get? Little old ladies wanded, scanned for bombs and weapons under their skirts next to the incontinence diapers. A bunch safer.

You could afford your house without your government if it weren't for your government.

Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.

It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.

I am a patient man--always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance, and also to give ample time for repentance. Still, I must save this government, if possible. What I cannot do, of course I will not do, but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.

The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.

A general government shall do all those things which pertain to it, and all the local governments shall do precisely as they please in respect to those matters which exclusively concern them.

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.

It has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember and overthrow it.

This slavery element is a durable element of discord among us, and ... we shall probably not have perfect peace in this country with it until it either masters the free principle in our government, or is so far mastered by the free principle as for the public mind to rest in the belief that it is going to end.

The fathers of the government expected and intended the institution of slavery to come to an end. They expected and intended that it should be in the course of ultimate extinction. And when I say that I desire to see the further spread of it arrested, I only say I desire to see that done which the fathers have first done.

As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow from--so must it be with a government.