freedom & laws

Tolerance is a better guarantee of freedom than brotherly love; for a man may love his brother so much that he feels himself thereby appointed his brother's keeper.
~ Everett Dean Martin - (1880-1941) Source: Liberty, 1930

Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power.... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
~ Thomas Jefferson, 1799

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
~Somerset Maugham

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self- preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.
~Thomas Jefferson to John Colvin, 1810

fear

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
~ H.L. Mencken 1880-1956 American journalist, satarist, social critic, anti-establishment figure, considered by scholars as one of America's greatest writers, known as 'The Sage of Baltimore.'

laws & leaders

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule
~ H. L. Mencken

It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
~ Murray N. Rothbard

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
~ Ayn Rand in "The Nature of Government"

The American government creates 50,000 new laws each year, and over 2 million new regulations. Then we are told by the courts that 'Ignorance of the law is no excuse!
~ Lorne Strider

cluster bombs

"A U.S. government official told reporters in Geneva last week that the Bush administration opposes a global agreement that would ban cluster bombs. State Department officials have also told Congress they oppose legislation that would ban the use of cluster bombs in or near civilian areas. If the administration refuses to act, Congress should act by passing the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act."

~ Lora Lumpe, FCNL Legislative Representative

killing

I hate it when they say, 'He gave his life for his country.' Nobody gives their life for anything. We steal the lives of these kids. We take it away from them. They don't die for the honor and glory of their country. We kill them."
~Admiral Gene LaRocque

courage

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundnce of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
~Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.
~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage-----torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians .. . which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
~George Orwell

freedom & government

These things I believe: That government should butt out. That freedom is our most precious commodity and if we are not eternally vigilant government will take it all away. That individual freedom demands individual responsibility. That government is not a necessary good but an unavoidable evil. That the executive branch has grown too strong, the judicial branch too arrogant and the legislative branch too stupid. That political parties have become close to meaningless. That government should work to insure the rights of the individual, not plot to take them away. That government should provide for the national defense and work to insure domestic tranquillity. That foreign trade should be fair rather than free. That once a year we should hang someone in government as an example to his fellows.

~Lyn Nofziger