"It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all
times and everywhere, to assume...that every citizen is a criminal. Their one
apparent purpose, pursued with a relentless and furious diligence, is to convert
the assumption into a fact. They hunt endlessly for proofs, and, when proofs are
lacking, for mere suspicions. The moment they become aware of a definite
citizen, John Doe, seeking what is his right under the law, they begin searching
feverishly for an excuse for withholding it from him."
H.L. Mencken
To be governed...is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated,
numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at,
spied upon, censured, checked, valued, enrolled - by creatures who have neither
the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so.~ Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon
A former Pentagon official said this week that before the start of the war
in Iraq, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave the Bush administration a
list of horribles, things he believed could go wrong, which the Bush
administration apparently mistook for a to-do list. — Amy Poehler, Saturday
Night Live
"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all;
it
is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same
safe level,
to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put
down dissent and
originality." H. L. Mencken
"A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding people
to
be exactly like one another; ... in proportion as it is
efficient and
successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind,
leading by a natural
tendency to one over the body." John Stuart
Mill
"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to
destroy;
because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property
can
bear taxation." ---John Marshall
America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World
War. If you hadn’t entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany
in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse
in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and
Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism
in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these ‘isms’ wouldn’t
to-day be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary
government, and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved
over one million British, French, American, and other lives. Winston Churchill
New York Enquirer, August of 1936
"In a republic, accountability is
indispensable. In a dictatorship, it is impermissible."~ anon
False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand
real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take
fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has
no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of
arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined
nor determined to commit crime. — Cesare Beccaria, quoted by Thomas
Jefferson
“The urge to
save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” H.L.
Mencken
"Look again at the seven lessons of schoolteaching: confusion,
class
assignment, dulled responses, emotional and intellectual
dependency,
conditional self-esteem, surveillance — all of these
things are good training
for permanent underclasses." John Taylor
Gatto
"The prospect of a government that treats all its citizens as criminal
suspects is more terrifying than any terrorist. And even more frightening is a
citizenry that can accept the surrender of its freedoms as the price of
'freedom'."~ Joe Sobran
"Free people can say "no". Free people can refuse demands for their money,
time, and children. Slaves cannot. There is no freedom without the freedom to
say "no". If someone demands that you do something and you can say "no" and
refuse to do it, then you are a free human being. If you can be forced to do
something or surrender something that you do not wish to, then you are a slave.
No other test need be applied" -- Michael Rivero
"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds
forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the
clean end." Anonymous Texas A&M student
Our Founding Fathers were proud that Americans were
trusted with arms because they knew that only when people are armed could they
truly be thought of as free citizens. And that's where the circle closes. Those
who want to deprive you of your right to keep and bear arms are intending to
deprive you of your freedom, period. Like the criminals their policies
encourage, these elitists know that it is always best to disarm victims before
you enslave them. — Charley Reese
"[E]very act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the
commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore,
contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm,
that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his
master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people
themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their
powers do not authorize, but what they forbid." -- Alexander Hamilton
"Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property
of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put
themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from
any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided
for all men against force and violence." John Locke
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security.
They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all — security, comfort, and
freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for
society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from
responsibility then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. — EDWARD
GIBBON [On ancient Athens]
"The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of
the
world. But how is... legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See
if
the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to
other
persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen
at
the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do
without
committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay... If such a
law
is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into
a
system." ---Frederic Bastiat
"The prospect of a government that treats all its citizens as
criminal su
| "The prospect of a government that treats all
its citizens as criminal suspects is more terrifying than any
terrorist. And even more frightening is a citizenry that can accept
the surrender of its freedoms as the price of 'freedom'." ~ Joe
Sobran | spects is more terrifying than
any terrorist. And even more frightening is a citizenry that can accept
the surrender of its freedoms as the price of 'freedom'." ~ Joe
Sobran |
"To be governed…is to be watched,
inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded,
controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censured, checked, valued,
enrolled – by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the
virtue to do so." ~ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
"To be governed…is to be watched,
inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded,
controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censured, checked, valued,
enrolled – by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the
virtue to do so." ~ Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon