"The government has created a nation of paper criminals. People can be put in jail and lose civil rights and liberties through bureaucratic procedures. The only thing that is keeping you out of jail is government goodwill." -- Ayn Rand
Q: How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two. One to assure the public that everything possible is being done while the other screws the bulb into a water faucet..
"Ultimately, however, as the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, a powerful bureaucratic class is in the same relation to commerce as was the scorpion in Aesop to the dog on whose back he crossed the river. They will destroy commerce and establish socialism, even if it kills them, because that is their nature." -- John Derbyshire
"Politicians are politicians all of the time -- whether they're helping themselves to an extra-serving of farm-subsidy bacon, writing new laws about when their opponents can and can't run ads about them or appointing bureaucrats to enforce those laws. ... There are no angels at the FEC. There aren't any in Congress or at the White House. And the sooner arrogant reformers like Sen. McCain and Fred Wertheimer realize that they're no angels either, the better for all of us -- and for the Constitution." -- Ryan Sager
"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means -- except by getting off his back." -- Leo Tolstoy
"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos." -- H. L. Mencken, 1919
"There is nothing quite so depressing as waking up to face a day when you know that you are going to have to deal with a government office or bureaucrat." -- Neal Boortz
"It's only a monopoly that can treat people [badly] with arrogance and continue to get away with it. And government is a monopoly." -- Clark Howard
"You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing. If you have been living in a world where outcomes are everything, you may have a very hard time understanding bureaucratic thinking or practices." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell
"The next time you consider believing that the state can do anything better than the market, imagine a sea of permanent bureaucrats, lobbyists, pandering politicians, and those mad attendees at political conventions, and ask yourself: what can these people do that individuals in society -- acting in their own self-interest, coordinating exchange through the market process, constantly testing decisions against economic feasibility and consumer demand -- cannot do. The answer is nothing. Before you write to tell me that without the state, there would be a fly in every soup, please read Murray Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State. It is the best explanation of how society manages itself just fine without a band of respectable-looking criminals telling everyone what to do." -- Lew Rockwell
"It's important to realize that whenever you give power to politicians or bureaucrats, it will be used for what they want, not for what you want."-- Harry Browne
"Politicians and bureaucrats are hopelessly addicted to running other people's lives." -- Geoffrey Neale
"There is nothing quite so depressing as waking up to face a day when you know that you are going to have to deal with a government office or bureaucrat." -- Neal Boortz
"Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned." -- Dr. Milton Friedman
"A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?" -- Marcus Tullius Cicero
"The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights." -- H.L. Mencken
"Every time the government replaces the private sector in the performance of any service or product manufacturing, it costs twice as much, delivers less than half the quality and reliability, puts an end to innovation, results in scarcity and waiting lists, and benefits no one in the long run except bureaucrats, politicians and whoever is willing to give in to whatever type of extortion turns out to be effective." -- Rick Gaber
"The Declaration of Independence is so lucid we're afraid of it today. It scares the hell out of every modern bureaucrat, because it tells them there comes a time when we must stop taking orders." -- Karl Hess |
