193 Quotes About Libertarianism

… many people must be ruled to thrive. In their selfishness and greed, they see free people as their oppressors. They wish to have a leader who will cut the taller plants so the sun will reach them. They think no plant should be allowed to grow taller than the shortest, and in that way give light to all. They would rather be provided a guiding light, regardless of the fuel, than light a candle themselves.

every action you take outside the scope of government control strengthens the market and weakens the state.

Was it laziness or incompetence that Times reporters hadn’t by then participated in left-activist group-phone calls about bolt cutters, gasoline cans and matches? (I know a conservative journalist who listened in on such calls.) And what is the theory of these journalistic geniuses? — That mobs of looters, in city after city, were summoned out of the night by political apathy?

That's libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.

But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you - and why?

Libertarianism is “cultish,” say the sophisticates. Of course, there’s nothing cultish at all about allegiance to the state, with its flags, its songs, its mass murders, its little children saluting and paying homage to pictures of their dear leaders on the wall, etc.

Libertarians are not the brightest lights in the candelabra, a fact that is evident from the alternatives they tend to offer to public prevention of private abuses. For example: if you don’t like working a hundred hours a week for twenty-five cents a day, then find another employer! It is obvious to intelligent people, if not libertarians, that more generous employers will price themselves out of a market whose standards are set by the most rapacious.

Would we cut our ties to Europe? would we pull into ourselves? Polish researcher Andrew Lobaczewski once noted that, “In general … in hedonistic societies particularly, people have the tendency to escape into ignorance or naïve doctrines. Some people even feel contempt for suffering persons.”America must not have contempt for suffering persons. Soon enough, we will be among the sufferers. This is how we save ourselves and how nations have always saved themselves.

This brief overview of our situation does not lend itself to an optimistic forecast. Too many of our fellow citizens, year after year, have hidden themselves in the “riskless private sphere,” resting on the safe possession of their “private property,” staying out of political controversies, yielding political ground to increasingly pathological narratives and persons. At long last this “riskless private sphere” is no longer safe. The exits have been blocked. A confrontation is now unavoidable.