Quotes through time
"Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."
-- P. J. O'Rourke
(1947- ) US humorist, journalist, & political commentator
Source: AGE AND GUILE BEAT YOUTH, INNOCENCE, AND A BAD HAIRCUT (Atlantic Monthly Press 1995)
"Search the Constitution and you will find no power granted to the legislative branch to make laws governing agriculture, housing, medicine, energy, private ownership or weapons, and a great deal more."
-- John F. McManus
Source: Ignoring the Obvious, THE NEW AMERICAN p. 44, April 1, 1996
"When men get in the habit of helping themselves
to the property of others, they cannot be easily cured of it."
-- New York Times
Source: 1909, commenting on the proposed 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to
overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!
-- Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865) 16th US President
"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would
be unlawful for them to do themselves." ... whenever the Legislators endeavor
to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to
Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the
People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to
the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and
Violence. Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this
fundamental Rule of Society, and either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption,
endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an Absolute
Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach of
Trust they forfeit the Power the People had put into their hands, for quite
contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their
original Liberty."
-- John Locke
(1632-1704) English philosopher and political theorist. Considered the ideological progenitor of the American Revolution and who, by far, was the most often non-biblical writer quoted by the Founding Fathers of the USA.
Source: SECOND TREATISE ON CIVIL GOVERNMENT
"The statist objective, always, is to make as many persons as possible,
as dependent as possible, on a government as big as possible."
-- Robert W. Lee
Source: Tracking the Budget Beast, THE NEW AMERICAN, p. 21, May 27, 1996
-- P. J. O'Rourke
(1947- ) US humorist, journalist, & political commentator
Source: AGE AND GUILE BEAT YOUTH, INNOCENCE, AND A BAD HAIRCUT (Atlantic Monthly Press 1995)
"Search the Constitution and you will find no power granted to the legislative branch to make laws governing agriculture, housing, medicine, energy, private ownership or weapons, and a great deal more."
-- John F. McManus
Source: Ignoring the Obvious, THE NEW AMERICAN p. 44, April 1, 1996
"When men get in the habit of helping themselves
to the property of others, they cannot be easily cured of it."
-- New York Times
Source: 1909, commenting on the proposed 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to
overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!
-- Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865) 16th US President
"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would
be unlawful for them to do themselves." ... whenever the Legislators endeavor
to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to
Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the
People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to
the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and
Violence. Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this
fundamental Rule of Society, and either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption,
endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an Absolute
Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach of
Trust they forfeit the Power the People had put into their hands, for quite
contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their
original Liberty."
-- John Locke
(1632-1704) English philosopher and political theorist. Considered the ideological progenitor of the American Revolution and who, by far, was the most often non-biblical writer quoted by the Founding Fathers of the USA.
Source: SECOND TREATISE ON CIVIL GOVERNMENT
"The statist objective, always, is to make as many persons as possible,
as dependent as possible, on a government as big as possible."
-- Robert W. Lee
Source: Tracking the Budget Beast, THE NEW AMERICAN, p. 21, May 27, 1996