Quotes About Government

When a government becomes unjust, honor is often found among the lawless.

and reduce the influence of political action committees.

Government, if it has any purpose at all (and many libertarians doubt it does), should be restricted to the protection of its citizens' persons and property against direct violence and theft.

The Rothbard crowd began its own official organization—the Radical Libertarian Alliance. (Its slogan: "War is murder. Taxation is theft. Conscription is slavery Government is chaos.")

Magna Carta or no, the rights of Americans were not not theirs only because of any ancient "contract." As James Wilson put it, using ancient legal terms, "The fee simple of freedom and government is declared to be in the people.

Among my father's most important messages were that governments lie to protect themselves and they make incredibly stupid decisions.

The human body is a machine, a system of organic chemicals, fluid conduits, electrical impulses; a government is likewise a machine of interacting societies, laws, cultures, rewards and punishments, patterns of behavior. Ultimately, the universe itself is a machine, planets around suns, stars gathered into clusters, clusters and other suns forming entire galaxies.… Our job is to keep the machinery functioning.

It is difficult to make power lovable—this is the dilemma of all governments. —PADISHAH EMPEROR HASSIK III, private Kaitain journals

The Government's supposed to be there for people when nobody else is, right? But it never works like that.

Sovereignty of the states was dying, North as well as South, and going with it was the ancient belief that the government which governs least is the government which governs best.

At the request of his government, then, Lee wrote to Grant: explaining, first, that runaway Negroes who owed service or labor to Confederate citizens still owed it, that the Confederate government would see to it that they paid what they owed, and that Confederate policy in this matter had abundant historical and constitutional justification.

The church, said Calvin, is not subject to secular government except in obviously secular matters. On the other hand, the church has the obligation under the sovereign God, to guide the secular authorities in spiritual matters. Such a vision sent Calvin's followers throughout Europe as a spiritual conspiracy seeking the overthrow of false religion and restrictive governments.

I don't advise a haircut, man. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hairs are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos, and transmit them directly into the brain. This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight.

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting

One asset class that belongs in most portfolios is bonds. Bonds are basically IOUs issued by corporations and government units. (The government units might be foreign, state and local, or government-sponsored enterprises such as the Federal National Mortgage Association, popularly known as Fannie Mae.) And just as you should diversify by holding a broadly diversified stock fund, so should you hold a broadly diversified bond fund.

Armies have always been viewed with suspicion in democratic societies because they are the least democratic of all social institutions. They are, in fact, not democratic at all. Governments which have tried to eliminate the officer class or to blur the distinction between officer and man have not been successful. Armies stand as disturbing reminders that democratic processes are not always the best, living and perpetual proof that, in at least this one area, the caste system works.

Hardly. Guin was passionate about many things, but government wasn't one of them. As far as she was concerned, one crowned puppet is pretty much the same as the next.

I am firmly committed to the proposition that whoever is in power is exceedingly silly.... And that goes for the opposition as well.

liberalism defines government as tyrant father but demands it behave as nurturant mother.

Modern liberalism suffers unresolved contradictions. It exalts individualism and freedom and, on its radical wing, condemns social orders as oppressive. On the other hand, it expects government to provide materially for all, a feat manageable only by an expansion of authority and a swollen bureaucracy. In other words, liberalism defines government as tyrant father but demands it behave as nurturant mother.

His theory is that the news media have gone way too far and the trend has to be stopped—almost like he was talking about federal spending. He's fixed on the subject and doesn't care how much time it takes; he wants it done. To him, the question is no less than the very integrity of government and basic loyalty. He thinks the press is out to get him and therefore is disloyal; people who talk to the press are even worse—the enemies within, or something like that.

No deliberative body is manifestly less qualified to make decisions about public education than our state Legislature. With a few shining exceptions, most of these clowns don't read, can't write, and clearly can't add.

It was inevitable that the poacher and the counterfeiter would bond, sharing as they did a blanket contempt for government, taxes, homosexuals, immigrants, minorities, gun laws, assertive women and honest work.

Only Indian tribes are allowed to run casino operations in Florida, so Dusty somehow persuaded a couple of rich Miccosukees from Miami to buy the marina and make it part of their reservation. Dad said the government raised a stink but later backed off because the Indians had better lawyers.