John Adams:
“I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their childeren a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” -John Adams
Samuel Adams:
“Neither the wisest Constitution or the wisest laws will secure liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country w ho tries most to promote its virtues.” -Samuel Adams
Alexis de Tocqueville:
“If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their characters by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse any one of them.” -Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America [1835]
Barry Goldwater:
“The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to the men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power that they have been given. It will come when Americans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution and restore the Republic. Who will proclaim in a campaign speech: ‘I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel the old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests’, I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.” -Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative, 1960; Victor Publishing Company, Sheperdsville, KY., p.17
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” -Barry Goldwater
“Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.” -Barry Goldwater
“The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government.” -Barry Goldwater
“Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.” -Barry Goldwater
Edmund Burke:
“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts…the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke
Benjamin Franklin:
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety.” -Benjamin Franklin
“Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.” -Benjamin Franklin
“This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights of which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.” -Benjamin Franklin
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” -Benjamin Franklin
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” -Benjamin Franklin
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” -Benjamin Franklin
Milton Friedman:
“Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion-the technique of the arm and the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals-the technique of the marketplace.” -Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom [1962]
Alexander Hamilton:
“The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus…are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it [the Constitution] contains. …The practices of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. …To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknonw or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a mo re dangerous engine of arbitrary government.” -Alexander Hamilton
Dwight D. Eisenhower:
“Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
George Washington:
“The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” -George Washington
James Madison:
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.” -James Madison
“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.” -James Madison
“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” -James Madison [note: this is why we have a constitutionally restricted REPUBLIC, not a straight mob rule democracy].
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.:
“Before 9-11 it was the Libertarians who said that 1990s sanctions against Iraq and broader intervention in the Middle East would inspire terrorism. The Libertarians also warned that FAA regulations weren’t really making the airlines secure. The Libertarians further saw that hundreds of billions spent on “defense” and intelligence” weren’t really providing either. Thus was 9-11, two years ago, a big “I-told-you-so” moment for libertarians. The hijackers, seething in anger at U.S. policy in the Gulf region and the Middle East, exploited a FAA-regulated system with plenty of loopholes for bad guys, to crash into a major financial center, and the U.S. government, despite all its spending and promises, was powerless to stop it. And yet, in this upside-down world, the big message after 9-11 was not that the government and its ways had failed us. Quite the opposite; we were told that the government would save us, and that it was libertarianism that failed.” -Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Ron Paul:
“Mr. Speaker, I once again find myself compelled to vote against the annual budget resolution for a very simple reason: it makes government bigger.” –Congressman Ron Paul, March 25th, 2004
“Let it be clearly understood – there is no authority to wage war against Iraq without Congress passing a Declaration of War…A U.N. Resolution authorizing an invasion of Iraq, even if it were to come, cannot replace the legal process for the United States going to war as precisely defined in the Constitution…Only tyrants can take a nation to war without the consent of the people. The planned war against Iraq without a Declaration of War is illegal. It is unwise because of many unforeseen consequences that are likely to result….The American people become less secure when we risk a major conflict driven by commercial interests. Victory under these circumstances is always elusive, and unintended consequences are inevitable.” -Congressman Ron Paul, March 1st, 2002
“The tired assertion that America ‘supports democracy’ in the Middle East is increasingly transparent. It was false 50 years ago, when we supported and funded the hated Shah of Iran to prevent nationalization of Iranian oil, and its false today when we back an unelected military dictator in Pakistan – just to name two examples.” - Congressman Ron Paul, December 3rd, 2002
“The official national debt figure, now approaching $9 trillion, reflects only what the federal government owes in current debts on money already borrowed. It does not reflect what the federal government has promised to pay millions of Americans in Entitlements benefits down the road. Those future obligations put our real debt figure at roughly fifty trillion dollars – a staggering sum that is about as large as the total household net worth of the entire United States. Your share of this fifty trillion amounts to about $175,000.” – Congressman Ron Paul, March 6th, 2007
“If present trends continue, by 2040 the entire federal budget will be consumed by Social Security and Medicare alone. To close the long-term entitlement gap, the U.S. economy would have to grow by double digits every y ear for the next 75 years.” –Congressman Ron Paul, March 6th, 2007
“Military force is justified only in self-defense; naked aggression is the province of dictators and rogue states. This is the danger of a new preemptive first strike doctrine.” –Congressman Ron Paul, September 4th, 2002
“Under the United States Constitution, the federal government has no authority to hold states “accountable” for their education performance. In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held accountable to parents, not federal bureaucrats.” –Congressman Ron Paul, March 23rd, 2001
“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as member’s of groups rather than individuals. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called ‘diversity’ actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist. We should understand that racism will endure until we stop thinking in terms of groups and begin thinking in terms of individual liberty.” –Congressman Ron Paul, April 18, 2007
“The federal government has no right to treat all Americans as criminals by spying on their relationship with their doctors, employers, or bankers.” –Congressman Ron Paul May 22nd, 2001
“Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy.” –Congressman Ron Paul, July 10th 2003
“We conveniently forget, however, that American tax dollars militarized the entire region in the first place. We give Israel about $3 billion each year, but we also give Egypt $2 billion. Most other Middle East countries get money too, some of which ends up in the hands of Palestinian terroists. Both sides have far more military weapons as a result. Talk about adding fuel to the fire! Our foolish and unconstitutional foreign aid has produced more violence, not less.” -Rep. Ron Paul, MD
“This illustrates perfectly the inherent problem with foreign aid: once we give money to one country, we have to give it to all the rest or risk making enemies. This is especially true in the Middle East and other strife-torn regions, where our financial support for one side is seen as an act of aggression by the other. Just as our money never makes Israel secure, it doesn’t buy us any true friends elsewhere in the region. On the contrary, many Muslims hat the United States despite the billions we give to their governments.” -Rep. Ron Paul, MD
“Respect for self-determination really is the cornerstone of a sensible foreign policy, yet many Americans who strongly support U.S. sovereignty advocate interventionist policies that deny other nations that same right….Washington and Jefferson had it right when they warned against entangling alliances.” -Rep. Ron Paul, MD
“Any talk of a Third Way is nothing more than propaganda for big government. It’s no compromise at all.” -Ron Paul
“If liberals want $46 billion for the Department of Education and conservatives argue for $42 billion, a compromise of $44 billion is a total victory for the advocates of federal government control of public education. ‘Saving’ $2 billion means nothing in the scheme of things, especially since the case for the constitutional position of zero funding was never entertained.” -Ron Paul
“Eliminating the power of the government to pass out favors is the only real solution.” -Ron Paul
“Current problems that we now confront are government created and can be much more easily dealt with when government is limited to its proper role of protecting liberty, instead of promoting a welfare-fascist state.” -Ron Paul
Thomas Jefferson:
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending to much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.” -Thomas Jefferson
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” -Thomas Jefferson
“I have no fear but that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.” -Thomas Jefferson
“When the Government fears the people, the people live in FREEDOM, but when the people fear the government, the people live in TYRANNY”. -Thomas Jefferson
“The sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also.” -Thomas Jefferson
“Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.” -Thomas Jefferson
“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plentitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” -Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.
“The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few to ride them.” -Thomas Jefferson
“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day, but a series of oppressions, began at a distinguished period and a pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.” -Thomas Jefferson
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” -Thomas Jefferson
Groups:
“It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.” -American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382,442 (1950)
“Keeping in mind the well-settled rule that the citizen is exempt from taxation unless the same is imposed by clear and unequivocal language, and that where the construction of a tax law is doubtful, the doubt is to be resolved in favor of those upon whom the tax is sought to be laid” -Spreckles Sugar Refining Co. v. McClain, 192 U.S.397 (1904)
