We vote too much. We deliberate too little. We have brought within the scope of the federal jurisdiction a vast number of subjects that do not belong here, but are nevertheless here. What we need to do is to stop passing laws. We have enough laws now to govern the world for the next ten thousand years.
James Alexander Reed
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One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.
Thomas Brackett Reed
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Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.
James Wilson
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One can become a leader only if one is supported by an ideology which makes other people tractable and accommodating.
Ludwig von Mises
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The modern definition of 'racist' is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal.
Peter Brimelow
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The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.
Thomas Sowell
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It is the nature of slavery to render its victims so abject that at last, fearing to be free, they multiply their own chains. You can liberate a freeman, but you cannot liberate a slave.
Louis J. Halle
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If none were to have Liberty but those who understand what it is, there would not be many freed Men in the world.
Lord Halifax
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When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty.
George Mason
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Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what has worked with what sounded good. In area after area- crime, education, housing, race relations- the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.
Thomas Sowell
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What is politically defined as economic "planning" is the forcible superseding of other people's plans by government officials.
Thomas Sowell
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Men resort to talking only when they haven't the power to enforce their convictions upon others.
Lin Yutang
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It is precisely those things which belong to "the people" which have historically been despoiled- wild creatures, the air, and waterways being notable examples. This goes to the heart of why property rights are socially important in the first place. Property rights mean self-interested monitors. No owned creatures are in danger of extinction. No owned forests are in danger of being leveled. No one kills the goose that lays the golden egg when it is his goose.
Thomas Sowell
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...the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to the flag, a leader, a religious faith or political conviction.
Arthur Koestler
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It can not even be said that the State has ever shown any disposition to suppress crime, but only to safeguard its own monopoly of crime.
Albert Jay Nock
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To say that a farm boy knows how to milk a cow is to say that we can send him out to the barn with an empty pail and expect him to return with milk. To say that a criminologist understands crime is not to say that we can send him out with a grant or a law and expect him to return with a lower crime rate. He is more likely to return with a report on why he has not succeeded yet, and including the inevitable need for more money, a larger staff, more sweeping powers, etc.
Thomas Sowell
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If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
Thomas Sowell
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Nobody can be trusted with unlimited power. The more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom.
Rudolph Rummel
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The way to virtually eliminate genocide and mass murder appears to be through restricting and checking power. This means to foster democratic freedom.
Rudolph Rummel
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For the sake of domestic peace, liberalism aims at democratic government. Democracy is therefore not a revolutionary institution. On the contrary it is the very means of preventing revolution and civil wars. It provides a method for the peaceful adjustment of government to the will of the majority.
Ludwig von Mises
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The essence of democracy is not that everyone makes and administers laws but that lawgivers and rulers should be dependent on the people's will in such a way that they may be peaceably changed if conflict occurs.
Ludwig von Mises
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If the small minority of enlightened citizens who are able to conceive sound principles of political management do not succeed in winning the support of their fellow citizens and converting them to the endorsement of policies that bring and preserve prosperity, the cause of mankind and civilization is hopeless. There is no other means to safeguard a propitious development of human affairs than to make the masses of inferior people adopt the ideas of the elite. This has to be achieved by convincing them. It cannot be accomplished by a despotic regime that instead of enlightening the masses beats them into submission. In the long run the ideas of the majority, however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction.
Ludwig von Mises
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I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence 'democracy,' and the other, 'tyranny.'.
Karl Popper
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