85 Quotes by James Bovard

If citizens wish to retain their liberty, they cannot assume that those who seek power over them are honest. Skepticism of government is one of the most important-and most forgotten-bulwarks of freedom.

The first step in saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it, and how we will continue to lose it unless fundamental political changes occur.

America needs fewer laws, not more prisons.

Voting is no substitute for the eternal vigilance that every friend of freedom must demonstrate towards government. If our freedom is to survive, Americans must become far better informed of the dangers from Washington – regardless of who wins the Presidency.

It is absurd to expect governments to descend gradually, step-by-step into barbarism – as if there was a train schedule to political hell and people could get off at any stop along the way.

The government’s appearing to be a necessary evil does not oblige people to trust it. We face a choice of trusting government or trusting freedom-trusting overlords who have lied and abused their power or trusting individuals to make the most of their own lives.

Dependency is the highest political good – at least for politicians. Since the 1930s, politicians have striven to leave no vote unbought.

Entire generations of Americans have come of age since the ancient time when the president’s power was constrained by a duty of candor to the American people.

Politicians nowadays treat Americans like medical orderlies treat Alzheimer’s patients, telling them anything that will keep them subdued. It doesn’t matter what untruths the people are fed because they will not long remember. But in politics, forgotten falsehoods almost guarantee new treachery.