Quotes About Government

Culture leaves long-lasting residues—Shiites and Sunnis slaughter each other over a succession issue fourteen centuries old; across thirty-three countries population density in the year 1500 significantly predicts how authoritarian the government was in 2000; over the course of millennia, earlier adoption of the hoe over the plow predicts gender equality today.

Art can elevate and ennoble. It can also degrade and even corrupt. Whatever should be done or not done by way of legal restriction of pornographic art, we ought not to make things easy on ourselves by pretending that art cannot be pornographic or that pornographic art cannot degrade. Nor ought we to avert our gaze from the peculiar insult and injustice involved in the government funding of pornography.

So it's really not true, after all, that the government has spared children from toil and instead lets them romp on the playgrounds. No, the government instead buses them into mass worker-training programs and is very resentful indeed when parents try to opt out of this arrangement, as in homeschooling.

government to act responsibly, serving only to provide a "seal of authenticity" certifying, for example, that a particular yellow disc contains an ounce of gold.

Gold standard caps inflation. If dollars are printed too quickly one can convert gold to pounds to dollars and back to gold again to make profit until the markets adjust back down. Friedman argues that gold standard hampers a government's ability to wage war. But is that a bad thing?

He felt that institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions. He came to see his early failure as a lucky break, an accidental escape from a trap that had been set for him, and he was very trap-wary about institutional truths for the remainder of his time.

They had been unable to move that vast placid mass of citizens, the ones who were satisfied with the government, whatever sort of government it might happen to be, the ones who feared rocking the boat more than they feared being devoured by the boat.

It isn't a philosophy at all," Jack Bernstein maintained, hammering fist against palm. "It's just a gang of strong-arm men who happened to find a power vacuum and moved right in. They've got no overriding program of government. They simply do what they think is necessary to perpetuate their own rule and keep things from blowing up again. They grabbed power, and now they improvise from day to day.

Even when state money became paper, and therefore intrinsically worthless, it was thought desirable to maintain belief that government notes – promises to pay the bearer – were in fact debt certificates backed by gold. Until 1971, the value of the American dollar was widely believed to depend on its convertibility into gold, as though the value of gold guaranteed the value of paper dollars.

Once a President or congressman is elected, we the taxpayers take care of them for life. I ask myself: If they are qualified to be our leaders, why can't they take care of themselves?

Social welfare is destroying the soul of America. Social programs are cancers growing within the spirit of the people they were created to serve. Social programs do not make people stronger. They keep people weak, depending on the government to solve their problems.

Have you ever wondered where the idea of retirement at the age of 65 came from? I'll tell you where: Otto von Bismarck, the president of Prussia, in 1889. Actually, Bismarck's government: At the time, the life expectancy of the average Prussian was about 45. Today, so many are living well into their 80s and 90s that the same promise might well bankrupt the federal government within the next generation.

There are legal Ponzi schemes and illegal Ponzi schemes. Social Security is a legal Ponzi scheme, as is the stock market.

It was not until the Industrial Age, that a new demand began growing: the demand for employees. In response, the government took over the task of mass education, adopting the Prussian system, which is what most Western school systems in the world are still modeled after today.

Taxes punish those who produce and reward those who don't produce.

one of the government's requirements is that anyone it lends money to must have a successful track record at managing multifamily apartment houses.

Many people want these government loans, but very few people qualify for them

The government will even lend you the money to fix up or rehabilitate the project if you qualify.

By the time the government gets a chance to tax that income, it's been spent on legally allowed pre-tax expenses.

The reason I minimize my income is because I don't want to pay it to the government. That is why my income comes from my asset column, through a Nevada corporation. If I work for money, the government takes it.

So we become rich by becoming partners with the government?

You're taxed when you earn. You're taxed when you spend. You're taxed when you save. You're taxed when you die.

In an educated society with a well-run government, prices should actually come down.

As I've said many times before, in the real world, the A students often go to work for the C students--and the B students work for the government.