Conservatism is Libertarian <- Reagan

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.

I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories.

The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
– Ronald Reagan, “Inside Ronald Reagan”, Reason magazine, July 1975

Liberty over Power <- Ben Franklin

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.

- Ben Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack

Democracy Produces Evil

The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots.

Elbridge Gerry, Constitutional Convention, Monday, May 31, 1787

Defense against Civil Rulers

Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.

– Tench Coxe, “Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution,” under the pseudonym “A Pennsylvanian” in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789.

Humor is the Best Defense <- Horace

What stops a man who can laugh from speaking the truth?

- Horace, cited in P.J. O’Rourke’s book Parliament of Whores

Disarm the Innocent <- William Burroughs

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.

I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.

– William S. Burroughs, Grand Street, no. 37 (1992). The War Universe

Free Will and Responsibility <- P.J. O'Rourke

One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on.

And when you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.

– P. J. O’Rourke, Rolling Stone Magazine, November 1989

War: Enemy of Liberty <- James Madison

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

Government Waste Robs Life

I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people.

The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager.

Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.
— Calvin Coolidge, 1924 Inaugural Address

Politicians: Useless for Prosperity

Roaming the world as a foreign correspondent for more than a decade, I was able to observe how a variety of vastly different nations organized themselves economically.

The inescapable conclusion was that no politician anywhere on the planet has ever actually created a rupee’s worth of prosperity.

– Louis Rukeyser, “Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street” newsletter, Nov 96

Art vs. Government

People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all.

– Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Rules for Writers <- William Safire

Fare well, one of our favorite wordsmiths

• Remember to never split an infinitive.
  
• The passive voice should never be used.
  
• Do not put statements in the negative form.
  
• Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
  
• Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
  
• If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
  
• A writer must not shift your point of view.
  
• And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
  
• Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!
  
• Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
  
• Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
  
• If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
  
• Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
  
• Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
  
• Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
  
• Always pick on the correct idiom.
  
• The adverb always follows the verb.
  
• Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.
  

William Safire (December 17, 1929 – September 27, 2009), Rules for Writers, from On Language

Liberty, or Atrophy

Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom.

The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever.

– Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essays Contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Review’ vol. 1 ‘Milton’ (1843)

Great Men are Bad Men <- Lord Acton

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did not wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility.

All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

– Lord John Dalberg Acton, Letter to Mandell Creighton (1887)

Free to Err <- J.S. Mill

That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise.

– John Stewart Mill, On Liberty ch. 1 (1859)

Strive against Oppression

The best Jihad
is to speak a just word
to an unjust ruler.

– Mishkat al-Masabih, quoting Muhammad.

Government is, at Best, Evil <- Thomas Paine

Common Sense, the book advocating secession from the British empire and credited with starting the Revolution, was the top-selling book of the 18th century, globally.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
— Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Character is the Cure to Government

Hence the less government we have the better–the fewer laws and the less confided power.

The antidote to this abuse of formal government is the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual; the appearance of the principal to supersede the proxy; the appearance of the wise man; of whom the existing government is, it must be owned, but a shabby imitation.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson, Politics (1844)

Respectable Writers <- DeWitt and Hume

John DeWitt was the pseudonym used by a Founder in the writing of several key Anti-Federalist Papers, in defense of individual liberty. The name was chosen in homage to a famous Dutch patriot.

It is asserted by the most respectable writers upon Government, that a well regulated militia, composed of the yeomanry of the country have ever been considered as the bulwark of a free people; and, says the celebrated Mr. Hume;

“without it, it is folly to think any free government will have stability or security. When the sword is introduced, as in our constitution (speaking of the British) the person entrusted will always neglect to discipline the militia, in order to have a pretext for keeping up a standing army; and it is evident this is a mortal distemper in the British parliament, of which it must finally inevitably perish.”

– John DeWitt, Antifederalist Papers, John Dewitt IV

Censorship for Babes <- Heinlein

The whole principle is wrong. It’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can’t have steak.
– Robert Heinlein, The Man Who Sold the Moon (1949), on censorship

The End of Law

The end of Law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge Freedom.

– John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (1689)

Government Terrorism

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear — kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor — with the cry of grave national emergency.

Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded.

Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.

– General Douglas MacArthur, A Soldier Speaks: Public Papers and Speeches of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (1965)

Govern Yourself

I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe–’That government is best which governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. —Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849)

Tyrannosaurus Debt

Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, “If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Attributes” (1856)

Writer’s Bloque

Usually, writers will do anything to avoid writing.

For instance, the previous sentence was written at one o’clock this afternoon. It is now a quarter to four. I have spent the past two hours and forty-five minutes:

• Sorting my neckties by width,
• looking up the word paisly in three dictionaries,
• attempting to find the town of that name on The New York Times Atlas of the World map of Scotland,
• sorting my reference books by width,
• trying to get the bookcase to stop wobbling by stuffing a matchbook cover under its corner,
• dialing the telephone number on the matchbook cover to see if I should take computer courses at night,
• looking at the computer ads in the newspaper and deciding to buy a computer because writing seems to be so difficult on my old Remington,
• reading an interesting article on sorghum farming in Uruguay that was in the newspaper next to the computer ads,
• cutting that and other interesting articles out of the newspaper,
• sorting – by width – all the interesting articles I’ve cut out of newspapers recently,
• fastening them neatly together with paper clips and making a very attractive paper clip necklace and bracelet set…

…which I will present to my girlfriend as soon as she comes home from the three-hour low-impact aerobic workout that I made her go to so I could have some time alone to write.
- P.J. O’Rourke, The Wit and Wisdom of P. J. O’Rourke

Destructive Unions

The methods by which a trade union can alone act, are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical.

- Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 1879

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But Now You Know

Why Workers Dislike Unions

Robbing Peter to Pay for Paul’s Vote

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul.

– George Bernard Shaw, Everybody’s Political What’s What (1944)

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But Now You Know

Fewer Laws

The US Code, only a subset of all laws and regulations on the books today. The US imprisons a higher percentage of its populace than Communist China does, more than Iran, more than did the Soviet Union, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or the Taliban's Afghanistan.

America needs fewer laws, not more prisons.

By trying to seize far more power than is necessary over American citizens, the federal government is destroying its own legitimacy.

We face a choice not of anarchy or authoritarianism, but a choice of limited government or unlimited government.

– James Bovard, Lost Rights; The Destruction of American Liberty

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But Now You Know

Majority Delusions

Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

– Alan Barth, The Loyalty of Free Men (1951)

Taxing the Fruit of Your Labor

Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Seizing the results of someone’s labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities.
– Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia

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But Now You Know

Why Workers Dislike Unions

Natural Rights, Virginia-Style

That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

— George Mason, Virginia Declaration of Rights, (1776)

Regarding Your Missive

It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don’t think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at).

There’s a singular and a perpetual charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty…Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever
- unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime.

- Thomas Aldrich, letter to Professor E.S. Morse, circa 1889