PRESERVING LIBERTY...

"To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion."
AYN RAND

"Talk about how various people have been 'winners' in 'the lottery of life' or have things that others don't have just because they 'happen to have money' is part of the delegitimizing of property as a prelude to seizing it."
THOMAS SOWELL

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."
WINSTON CHURCHILL

"In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own... Who ever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

"Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."
RONALD W. REAGAN

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinners but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."
ADAM SMITH

"The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument. And the emotional faculties are more highly developed in most men than the rational, paradoxically or especially even in those who regard themselves as intellectuals."
MILTON FRIEDMAN

"Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure."
L. NEIL SMITH

"Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state? Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state. limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; that any more extensive state will violate person's rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minmal state is justified as well as right. Two noteworthy implications are that the state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens to aid others, or in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection. Despite the fact that it is only coercive routes towards these goals that are excluded, while voluntary ones remain, many persons will reject our conclusions instantly, knowing they dont want to believe anything so callous towards the needs and suffering of others. I know the reaction; it was mine when I first began to consider such views. With reluctance I found myself becoming to be convinced of Libertarian views, due to various considerations and arguments."
ROBERT NOZICK