"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson
“A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.” Ayn Rand
“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.” Ayn Rand
"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government." Thomas Jefferson
"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
"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
"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
"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
"The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbour and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest functionaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am to be allowed to live or to work." Friedrich Hayek
“It is a grave error to suppose that a dictatorship rules a nation by means of strict, rigid laws which are obeyed and enforced with rigorous, military precision. Such a rule would be evil, but almost bearable; men could endure the harshest edicts, provided these edicts were known, specific and stable; it is not the known that breaks men’s spirits, but the unpredictable. A dictatorship has to be capricious; it has to rule by means of the unexpected, the incomprehensible, the wantonly irrational; it has to deal not in death, but in sudden death; a state of chronic uncertainty is what men are psychologically unable to bear.” Ayn Rand
"If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it...The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason." GK Chesterton
"Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice." G.K. Chesterton
"Eugenics asserts that all men must be so stupid that they cannot manage their own affairs; and also so clever that they can manage each other's." G.K. Chesterton
“Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.” G.K. Chesterton
“The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.” Ayn Rand
“Hey, hey, hey, that's what I say...” Keith Richards / Michael Jagger |
