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| Quotations - General | [Quote No.41370] Need Area: Friends > General
"[In order to make the best, responsible use of their vote in a democracy, each individual should at least try to understand each political party's philosophy, to see if they agree or disagree. For those that hold individual unalienable human rights as paramount they might find the following example diconcerting...] 'Freiheit' (German for freedom or liberty) was another victim of semanticide [the politically driven, complete alteration of the meaning of a word]. 'Liberalism' from Thomas Hobbes onward has tended to define freedom as the absence of restraints upon the individual. Nazism [National Socialism, in German, 'Nationalsozialismus', was the ideology practiced by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany and is considered a variety of fascism] defined it as the absence of restraints upon the state. 'There is no freedom of the individual,' [Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's press secretary, Dr. Otto] Dietrich declared. 'There is only freedom of peoples, nations or races.'" - John Wesley Young
Quote from 'Orwell's Newspeak and Totalitarian Language. Its Nazi and Communist Antecedents',(Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1991), p. 106.
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| [Quote No.41375] Need Area: Friends > General
"We are all born free with the right to own our own bodies - the paramount human property right - and therefore the product of that body’s efforts and luck [i.e. unique ideas, property, capital] or the products of others, so long as it is exchanged or given, freely and without fraud. Therefore the essential role of unalienable, human, birth-rights (non-negotiable, individual entitlements), the law and governments is to ensure that that initial liberty, given by nature - and if religious, by our creator, endures throughout our lives, regardless of unselfish or selfish attempts, by individuals or groups – even majorities in democracies, to circumvent them!" - Ben O'Grady
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of www.imagi-natives.com
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| [Quote No.41376] Need Area: Friends > General
"A society could be created which maximized individual freedom, while protecting the person and property of each person, with only two moral principles made into laws, that would apply to all individuals and groups: 1- Thou shalt not break thy word - a law for agreements and contracts, which would also guard against fraud and; 2- Thou shalt not initiate force or the threat of force - a law for peaceful co-operation, which would guard against aggression and coercion. Such a society has been explored in a book, 'The Market For Liberty', by Linda and Morris Tannehill." - Ben O'Grady
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of www.imagi-natives.com [The book, ‘The Market For Liberty’, by Linda and Morris Tannehill, is available at http://www.amazon.com/The-Market-Liberty-Morris-Tannehill/dp/0930073088 and as a podcast at
http://www.podiobooks.com/title/the-market-for-liberty/feed ]
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| [Quote No.41377] Need Area: Friends > General
"[It is an important responsibility to have the right to vote in a democracy and therefore it is important for each voter to know at least a little about each political philosophy so that each individual's vote can mean something. The web is a good way to get a range of ideas and facts. Here is a very brief introduction to Communism which I took off the internet. Communism is one of the political philosophies that is based on statism, where government, rather than each individual, has the rights, powers and responsibilities.]
Communism facts:
While we all know that Russia was a member state of the communist former Soviet Union, what else have we learned about this particular area of politics? How did it originate and why was it so widely embraced in the 20th century? If you've ever wanted to learn more about communism then please read on.
-The true ideal:
How do you encapsulate the theory of Communism in a few words? It is almost impossible when you consider how the system was managed in the Soviet Union but the basic principle suggests that all people are equal and are working for the good of society as a whole and that all property is held in common instead of being owned by individuals or corporations [-there are no private property rights].
When we think of Communism we are aware of the quote 'all property is theft' and that pertains to the notion that all property is held by society as a whole.
-Early practise:
While the term 'Communism' wasn't coined for many centuries, some of its essential elements have been practised throughout human history, including in the middle ages with the use of communal fields in mediaeval times.
In fact, some theorists claim that Communism has its roots in Ancient Greece and the Golden Age which held a concept of bliss and harmony for its entire population.
-Marx and Engels:
It's a generally held belief that Karl Marx was the father of modern Communism and together with Friedrich Engels, he developed his theory which became known as Marxism.
Marx was a German, born in 1818 and he met his fellow philosopher Engels in 1844. Both shared a common hatred towards capitalist society and together they began working on a common manifesto.
-Roots in Belgium:
Belgium is an unlikely setting for Communist roots but both Marx and Engels moved there because the country allowed greater freedom of expression. In fact, Marx had been deported from France over his views.
While in Belgium, the two men began to collaborate and in 1848, the Communist Manifesto was born.
-The movement takes shape:
Many left wing movements began to adopt the Marxist ideals towards the end of the 19th century and the Communist political system began to take shape.
Its early pockets of support were across Europe and in some unlikely areas such as France and Germany. It wasn't until the Russian revolution however, that the political movement gained a foothold in government.
-1917:
At the start of the 20th century, Russia was an autocracy run by the Tsar who presided over a country with widespread poverty and oppression. This was a perfect breeding ground for Communism and so it proved. In 1917, the people finally rose up against the Royal Family and a communist government was installed that lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's.
-Communism Today:
While Communist governments have fallen across Eastern Europe, the party still has support in Russia although its vote count is some way behind the existing government. While it's not impossible for Communism to return in Russia, it seems unlikely. There are also communist parties active in many other countries, including some where they either are the government, or form part of a coalition government. Countries with communist governments today include China, North Korea and (in the only democratically elected communist government) Moldova." - Matt Harris
Matt has been working as a freelance writer for over twenty years, and has been interested in Russian history and culture since first studying the country at school. Article from the all-things-Russia blog, 'Siberian Light'
September 8, 2011 [http://siberianlight.net/communism-facts/ ]
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| [Quote No.41382] Need Area: Friends > General
"Rights:
('A 'right' is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context.' - Ayn Rand) ('Every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.' - John Locke, 'The Second Treatise On Civil Government')
Man survives by reason, and in order to do so, he must be free from the initiation of force. Society can be greatly beneficial to the individual because of mutual protection, division of labor, and economies of scale. But it is only beneficial to the extent that the individual is still free to act and survive according to his own reason.
Individual rights state explicitly the requirements for a person to benefit rather than suffer from living in a society. They codify man's protection from the initiation of force, as required by his rational nature. Being required by man's rational nature, rights are not arbitrary or negotiable. They are absolute requirements for life within a society. Rights are absolute.
---Right to Life:
The right to life is the fundamental right, of which all other rights are corollaries. The right to life states that you own your own body. It is your property to do with as you please. No one may force you to do anything, no one may injure you in any way, and above all, no one may take your life (without consent.)
The opposite to the right to life is life as a slave, where someone or some people essentially own you -- they can dictate what you do, when you do it, and take your life if they please.
It should be noted that rights are guarantees to freedom of actions. They do not provide for anything but freedom of action. There is no right to food, for example; only the right to work and keep the proceeds with which you may buy food.
---Right to Liberty:
The right to liberty is a part of the right to life, specifically referring to your freedom of action. You may do what you want, when you want, provided you don't trample on the rights of anyone else. This is a necessity for man's life because man's means of survival is reason. Survival by reason requires that you are able to act upon your reason otherwise your reason is of no avail. You can only act on your reason if you are free from the coercion of others.
If society were to permit some actions and not others, it would be permitting some reason and not other reason. It would be effectively destroying individual reason by making reason second place to some other standard. When a society prevents its citizens from the initiation of force, however, it is not circumventing reason, because there is never a reason for the initiation of force [although retaliatory force is a right - see The Right to Self Defense below].
---Right to Property:
Property rights are an extension to the right to life. In order to support yourself through reason and stay alive, you must be able to own and use the product of your labor. If the tools of your survival are subject to random confiscation, then your life is subject to random destruction.
---Right to the Pursuit of Happiness:
The right to the pursuit of happiness is freedom of action. To live, man must achieve values. To achieve values, man must be free to think and act. The right to the pursuit of happiness means a man is free to do anything he pleases, as long as it doesn't conflict with the rights of others. Since man must use his own mind to live, he must be able to choose his values and act towards them. Even acts which are destructive to himself must be allowed, or a man cannot live by his own mind. Ultimately, man must be free to pursue his own goals and happiness.
---Right to Free Speech:
The right to free speech is a recognition that speech in itself if devoid of physical threats is not an initiation of force and does not warrant any retaliatory force. Many dictatorships and People's States will outlaw certain types of speech as being dangerous or inflammatory or against the will of the people, but this censorship is just an evasion of reality - hoping that if a problem is ignored it will go away. Freedom of speech is required for liberty because without the freedom of speech, you can not persuade others of what is right and what is wrong. Without the freedom to persuade others, only force can make people act in a particular way. It is an important check on government because it allows transgressions to be identified and fixed rather than hidden and perpetuated.
---Right to Self Defense:
The right to defend yourself is a corollary to the right to life...." - Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands
Copyright © 2001 by Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands.
[http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Politics_Rights.html#RightToProperty ]
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| [Quote No.41383] Need Area: Friends > General
"To be a socialist is to submit the 'I' to the 'thou'; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole. [Individual human rights are negated and replaced by only the state, that is the government, having rights.]" - Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels
(1897 – 1945), German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi [National Socialist] Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers.
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| [Quote No.41384] Need Area: Friends > General
"Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good." - Ayn Rand
(1905 – 1982), born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, she was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels ‘The Fountainhead’ and ‘Atlas Shrugged’ and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.
In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights.
The Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings. She is a major influence among libertarians and American conservatives.
Quote from her book, ‘For the New Intellectual'.
[refer http://aynrandlexicon.com/ ]
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| [Quote No.41396] Need Area: Friends > General
"There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail." - Eric Hoffer
(1902 - 1983), American social writer.
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| [Quote No.41390] Need Area: Friends > General
"The Nazis [National Socialists] defended their policies, and the country did not rebel; it accepted the Nazi argument. Selfish individuals may be unhappy, the Nazis said, but what we have established in Germany is the ideal system, socialism. In its Nazi usage this term is not restricted to a theory of economics; it is to be understood in a fundamental sense. ‘Socialism’ for the Nazis denotes the principle of collectivism as such and its corollary, statism — in every field of human action, including but not limited to economics.
‘To be a socialist,’ says Goebbels, ‘is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.’
By this definition, the Nazis practiced what they preached. They practiced it at home and then abroad. No one can claim that they did not sacrifice enough individuals." - Leonard S. Peikoff
(1933 - ), Canadian-American philosopher. A former professor of philosophy, he is an author, a leading advocate of Objectivism and the founder of the Ayn Rand Institute.
Quote from his book, ‘The Ominous Parallels’.
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| [Quote No.41391] Need Area: Friends > General
"[What are human rights? What do people have a right to expect from life? What do people have a right to expect from their government? These are critical questions in political philosophy and therefore the different political parties, and their policies, we can vote for in a democracy and thereby the types of laws, regulations, lifestyles, economies and societies we have. Here is an article which looks at one of the most critical issues that distinguishes capitalist societies, which believe that individuals have private property rights, from socialist and communist societies, which do not.]
‘Property Rights and Human Rights’ -
Tricky phrases with favorable meanings and emotional appeal are being used today to imply a distinction between property rights and human rights. By implication, there are two sets of rights — one belonging to human beings and the other to property. Since human beings are more important, it is natural for the unwary to react in favor of human rights. Actually, there is no such distinction between property rights and human rights. The term property has no significance except as it applies to something owned by someone.
Property itself has neither rights nor value, save only
as human interests are involved. There are no rights but
human rights, and what are spoken of as property rights
are only the human rights of individuals to property.
Expressed more accurately, the issue is not one of property rights versus human rights, but of the human rights of one person in the community versus the human rights of another.
Those who talk about two sets of rights apparently want to discriminate between property income and labor income — with the implication that the rights to rental and investment income are inferior, as a class, to the rights to income from wages and salaries. Actually, this is an unwarranted assumption. It must be evident that all persons have rights which are entitled to respect. Safeguarding such rights is essential to the well-being of all. This is the only just principle. Thus, the problem is not to establish priorities on human rights in the community, but rather to determine what the respective rights are in the particular cases under dispute. This is the real problem in human relations, and it is one that calls for the exercise of wisdom, restraint, and true administration of justice under law.
--What Are Property Rights?
What are the property rights thus disparaged by being set apart from human rights? They are among the most ancient and basic of human rights, and among the most essential to freedom and progress. They are the privileges of private ownership, which give meaning to the right to the product of one's labor — privileges which men have always regarded instinctively as belonging to them almost as intimately and inseparably as their own bodies. The ownership of property is the right for which, above all others, the common man has struggled in his slow ascent from serfdom. It is the right for which he struggles today in countries emerging from feudalism. The sense of this right is so deep-rooted in human nature, so essential as a stimulant of productive effort, that even totalitarian regimes have been unable to abolish it entirely [The political philosophy and policies of Socialism disregards individuals rights to private property and Communism believes no property can be owned by individuals as it is owned by the state alone]. It is a mistake to belittle the importance of property rights [after all the very basis of property rights according to the philosopher, John Locke, is that each person is born free and not a slave - they own themselves and therefore they own the product of their own effort, or in other words, their property and therefore have a right to dispose of it as they so freely choose]. Respect for these rights is basic to organized society, and the instinct of individuals to acquire property is at the root of all economic progress. Unless people can feel secure in their ability to retain the fruits of their labor, there is little incentive to save and to expand the fund of capital — the tools and equipment for production and for better living. The industrial development of this country [the United States of America], which has given us the highest standard of living in the world and has made possible a miracle of production in war and peace, is dependent upon the observance of property rights. Who is going to work and save if these rights are not recognized and protected?
The right to own property means the right to use it, to save it, to invest it for gain, and to transmit it to others. It means freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and from deprivation without due process of law or without just compensation. It might also be fairly taken to imply a limitation upon taxation because ‘the power to tax involves the power to destroy.’ For a like reason, it should imply assurance against governmental dilution of the money whereby the government takes property which otherwise could be claimed by wage and salary checks and other credit instruments. Further, it should insure against other measures so burdensome or restrictive as to prevent the employment of savings in legitimate productive enterprise with a reasonable prospect of gain. Violation of any of these rights can nullify, in whole or in part, the right to property. The Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution recognizes no distinction between property rights and other human rights. The ban against unreasonable search and seizure covers ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects,’ without discrimination. No person may, without due process of law, be deprived of ‘life, liberty, or property’ [The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution]; all are equally inviolable. The right of trial by jury is assured in criminal and civil cases alike. Excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments are grouped in a single prohibition.
The Founding Fathers realized what some present-day politicians seem to have forgotten: A man [or woman] without property rights — without the right to the product of his [or her] own labor — is not a free man [or woman]. He [or she] can exist only through the generosity or forbearance of others. These constitutional rights all have two characteristics in common. First, they apply equally to all persons. Second, they are, without exception, guarantees of freedom or immunity from governmental interference. They are not assertions of claims against others, individually or collectively. They merely say, in effect, that there are certain human liberties, including some pertaining to property, which are essential to free men [and women] and upon which the state shall not infringe. To many people, the expression ‘putting property rights first and human rights second’ brings to mind the oftdrawn political picture of a struggle between a few ‘rich plutocrats’ and ‘soulless corporate monopolies’ on the one hand and the great body of humble citizens on the other. Much of what the public reads and hears about the recurring steel wage controversy [in 1954 when this article was published, but the rhetoric is still the same] conveys the same impression, with emphasis almost entirely on ‘the workers’ versus the ‘big companies.’ John L. Lewis' blast against what he called the ‘rapacious and predatory’ steel industry illustrates the point. In a message to Philip Murray, president of the United Steelworkers, offering a loan of $10,000,000 of coal miners' dues from the union treasury to back up the 1952 steel strike, Mr. Lewis said: ‘We are conscious of the strength of the vast array of adversaries which confront you. Rarely has a union membership faced such a formidable grouping of financial and corporate interests as now oppose the steel workers of the nation in their longstanding struggle to achieve their rightful aims and objectives in the industry.’
In all such talk about ‘big companies’ and ‘formidable groupings of financial and corporate interests,’ hardly anything is said about the shareholders, little and big, who are the real owners of the business and whose money, plowed into plant and equipment, has made possible the large employment and the record output.
--Who Are The Propertied Classes?
Actually, ownership of property [in 1954] cuts across those imaginary lines between economic classes in the United States; and in no other country is the stake in property rights so great and so widely distributed. While we hear much about large corporations with thousands of employees and millions of dollars in assets, it is probably not generally realized that there are over 4,000,000 nonfarm business enterprises in this country. Of these, over nine-tenths are classified by the Department of Commerce as ‘small business' on the basis of their number of employees or dollar volume of sales. The importance of ‘small business’ in the economy of the country is further shown by the fact that it accounts for 45 per cent of the total employment of all business enterprises. One of the largest of our ‘propertied classes’ — the farmers —
includes nearly 4,000,000 farm owners whose lands and buildings are valued at $55,000,000,000. Even among large corporations, the ownership of stock is widely distributed; there are now 75 American companies each having over 50,000 registered shareholders. The Bell Telephone System, in its 1951 annual report, showed 1,092,000 shareholders, with no individual owner holding as much as 1/20 of 1 per cent of the total stock. Only five cities in this nation have as large a total population. General Motors, with greater sales volume than any other industrial corporation, has 479,000 shareholders. A study entitled ‘Share Ownership in the United States’, just completed by the Brookings Institution of Washington, reaches the conclusion that there are about 6,500,000 individual shareholders of investor-owned corporations. It was found by the survey — contrary to the opinions often heard — that 32 per cent of the shareholders were from families having incomes under $5,000 annually; 44 per cent had incomes of $5,000-$10,000; and only 24 per cent had incomes over $10,000.
--What Are Human Rights?
Now what about the so-called human rights that are represented as superior to property rights? What about the ‘right’ to a job, the ‘right’ to a standard of living, the ‘right’ to a minimum wage or a maximum workweek, the ‘right’ to a ‘fair’ price, the ‘right’ to bargain collectively, the ‘right’ to security against the adversities and hazards of life, such as old age and disability? The framers of the [US] Constitution would have been astonished to hear these things spoken of as rights [as the constitution was a description of what powers, rights and responsibilities the individuals have that they give up to the care of the government and what they keep for themselves and restrict the government to interfere with]. They are not immunities from governmental compulsion; on the contrary, they are demands for new forms of governmental compulsion. They are not claims to the product of one's own labor; they are, in some if not in most cases, claims to the products of other people's labor. These ‘human rights’ are indeed different from property rights [namely the right for each individual to own the product of their own labor and then to sell, rent, or give it away as they freely choose], for they rest on a denial of the basic concept of property rights. They are not freedoms or immunities assured to all persons alike. They are special privileges conferred upon some persons at the expense of others [i.e. giving to a favored individual or group by denying the rights, including property rights, of another individual or group]. The real distinction is not between property rights and human rights, but between equality of protection from governmental compulsion on the one hand and demands for the exercise of such compulsion for the benefit of favored groups on the other.
--The Right To A Job:
To point out these characteristics of the so-called human rights is not to deny the reality nor belittle the importance of the social problems they represent. Some of these problems are real and important. They are also complex, and in this further respect they are different from the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. There is no great difficulty nor danger in declaring that certain individual rights shall not be tampered with by the government — and in adhering to that principle. It is quite another matter to say that the government shall seize the property or curtail the freedom of some of its citizens for the benefit, or the supposed benefit, of others. To adopt this view is to cast both the government and the citizen in radically new roles, with far-reaching effects on economic behavior, political practices, and individual character. Consider, for example, the so-called ‘right to a job’. This is a fine-sounding phrase that evokes an emotional response. It creates a mental image of an unemployed worker and his family suffering hardship through no fault of their own. No one would deny the reality nor the seriousness of that, especially when the unemployed worker is multiplied by millions. To find the best remedy, however, is a difficult matter; and it is not made easier by the use of such misleading catchwords as the ‘right’ to a job. One man's ‘right’ to a job implies an obligation on the part of someone else to give him a job. Who has any such obligation? An economy of private enterprise functions by means of voluntary contracts entered into for the sake of mutual advantage. Jobs arise from such contracts. The obligation to fulfill his contract is the only right any person can have to a job. Both sides of the contract have to be fulfilled. The employer's job — his side of the contract — is to anticipate what the consumers will want in the market place. His capacity to offer jobs to employees depends upon how well he understands the market pattern of consumer preferences. He has no right of control over the market. There is a limit to his capacity to provide jobs. And in the final analysis, an employee's so-called ‘right to a job’ is determined by what consumers think the product or service is worth to them.
As with the ‘right’ to a job, so with the other so-called human rights. These are not rights in the constitutional sense of respect for privacy; they are, instead, social programs which the government has undertaken or has been asked to promote. These programs, unlike true rights, are selective, coercive, complex, and experimental. Hence, they need to be carefully considered each on its own merits with due regard to the serious threats they may involve to the real and basic human rights that have enabled free men to build a society with the highest level of material well-being ever achieved anywhere.
--Triple Threats:
--1-- On the economic side:- the gravest threat is that productive enterprise will be so burdened and impeded by high taxes, prohibitions, red tape, and controls that industry will stagnate. Without the products of industry, social programs of any kind become empty promises. New political powers and functions increase the cost of government and drain manpower from farms and factories into administrative bureaus. The great bulk of the money for benefit payments to favored groups must be taken from those who produce by putting forth their own efforts or by investing their savings. Minimum-wage rates wipe out the entire lower range of job opportunities in the business world. Only the government, with the power to tax, can pay more for labor than it is worth. Maximum-hour laws further limit the opportunity to be productive. Artificially pegged prices and wage rates interfere with the normal market process of gearing production to the maximum satisfaction of consumer wants.
--2-- On the political side:- the increase of power multiplies the opportunities for the abuse of power and the harm that can be done by such abuse. High tax rates expose taxpayers and collectors to strong temptations. The disbursement of billions of dollars in public funds opens new avenues for favoritism and corruption. This system of political distribution of the wealth of a nation encourages government by pressure groups, with the favors flowing toward the groups with the most votes. Demands for more liberal benefits on the one hand and for tax relief on the other converge upon the public treasury. Deficit financing and currency depreciation tend to become national habits which feed upon the savings of individuals and wipe out the means of production and progress.
--3-- On the human side:- the individual citizen discovers that it is increasingly difficult to get ahead by enterprise and thrift — increasingly profitable to join in the scramble for governmental favors and handouts. The sense of relationship between services rendered and payment received grows weaker. Personal initiative and self-reliance give way to an attitude of: Let the government do it. Free citizens tend to degenerate into wards of the state. These are not imaginary effects, but real ones. They are visible here and now. They are the consequences of placing social programs, mislabeled ‘human rights,’ above the real human rights, disparagingly called ‘property rights,’ which underlie the productive strength of free men [and women]." - Paul L. Poirot
In ‘Essays on Liberty, Vol. II’ (1954) , pp. 79-89
Published by The Foundation for Economic Education.
[http://www.unz.org/Pub/EssaysLiberty-1954-00079 ]
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| [Quote No.41419] Need Area: Friends > General
"A wise and frugal government...shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." - Thomas Jefferson
American Founding Father. Quote from 1801.
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| [Quote No.41420] Need Area: Friends > General
"Government [which only has the money it has taken from man - i.e. society - therefore it] cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer [by destroying incentives, productivity and misallocating resources]." - Ludwig von Mises
Famous Austrian School economist, who believed in small government.
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| [Quote No.41425] Need Area: Friends > General
"Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen [and women] drape over their will to power. [Whether that idealism will be expressed in their political performance is always an open question.]" - Aldous Huxley
(1894 - 1963) Author
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| [Quote No.41426] Need Area: Friends > General
"A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them." - P. J. O'Rourke
(1947 - ), US humorist, journalist and political commentator.
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| [Quote No.41427] Need Area: Friends > General
"[Politicians and advertisers learned a long time ago that...] There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it." - William James
(1842 - 1910), The father of modern Psychology.
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| [Quote No.41428] Need Area: Friends > General
"The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is in fact, and must be, regarded by the judges as a
fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If
there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought of course to be preferred;
or in other words, the constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents." - Alexander Hamilton
(1755 or 1757 – 1804), a Founding Father of the US, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury. Quote from the 'Federalist', No. 78, p. 404.
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| [Quote No.41429] Need Area: Friends > General
"Charity [welfare, social security, etc] is no part of the legislative duty of the government." - James Madison
(1751 – 1836), American statesman, political theorist and the fourth President of the United States (1809–1817). He is hailed as the 'Father of the Constitution' for being instrumental in the drafting of the United States Constitution and as the key champion and author of the United States Bill of Rights.
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| [Quote No.41432] Need Area: Friends > General
"[Government, legislation and individual freedom and human rights:] And it is not difficult to show, by abundant instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities." - John Stuart Mill
(1806 - 1873,) English philosopher and economist. Quote from his book, 'On Liberty', published 1859.
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| [Quote No.41433] Need Area: Friends > General
"...the arguments that have been addressed to us lead me to utter more explicit misgivings about war powers than the Court has done. The Government asserts no constitutional basis for this legislation other than this vague, undefined and undefinable 'war power.' No one will question that this power is the most dangerous one to free government in the whole catalogue of powers. It is usually invoked in haste and excitement, when calm legislative consideration of constitutional limitation is difficult. It is executed in a time of patriotic fervor that makes moderation unpopular. And, worst of all, it is interpreted by judges under the influence of the same passions and pressures. Always, as in this case, the Government urges hasty decision to forestall some emergency or serve some purpose and pleads that paralysis will result if its claims to power are denied or their confirmation delayed." - Justice Robert H. Jackson
(1892 - 1954), U. S. Supreme Court Justice.
Source: Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co., 333 U.S. 138, 146 (1948).
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| [Quote No.41446] Need Area: Friends > General
"In all forms of government [based on democracy, the majority of] the people is the true legislator." - Edmund Burke
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| [Quote No.41447] Need Area: Friends > General
"The history of free men [and women] is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!" - Dwight D. Eisenhower
(1890 – 1969), Dwight David 'Ike' Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He had previously been a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II, and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe.
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| [Quote No.41458] Need Area: Friends > General
"Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us daily!" - Sally Koch
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| [Quote No.41464] Need Area: Friends > General
"[Immorality or] Sin has many tools, but a lie [fraud] is the handle that fits them all. [If you feel you will have to lie about it later then your conscience is aware that you shouldn't do it, so don't.]" - Oliver Wendell Holmes
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| [Quote No.41467] Need Area: Friends > General
"[Self-defence and Martial Arts:] Every citizen should be a soldier [i.e. capable of self-defence]. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state." - Thomas Jefferson
(1743 – 1826), American Founding Father, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and the third President of the United States (1801–1809).
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| [Quote No.41473] Need Area: Friends > General
"Let the beauty we love, be what we do." - Rumi
(1207 – 1273), Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi was a Persian poet, Islamic dervish, Sufi mystic and jurist.
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| [Quote No.41484] Need Area: Friends > General
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. [Why? Because the majority can always exploit a minority until the minority explodes. It is why human rights, which even a majority in a democracy cannot violate, is so important to stop the numerous preying on the less numerous.]" - John Adams
(1735 – 1826), an American Founding Father, lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States (1797–1801).
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| [Quote No.41489] Need Area: Friends > General
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters." - Frederick Douglass
(1817 - 1895)
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| [Quote No.41494] Need Area: Friends > General
"Education [and therefore the equal opportunity for education] then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men [and women, regardless of their initial circumstances], the balance-wheel of the social machinery. [It above all else, allows people to make the most of themselves and their dreams, for the good of all, in a free society that, by supporting individual property rights, allows, encourages and incentivises them to profit from their efforts.]" - Horace Mann
(1796 - 1859), famous American lawyer, politician and then educational administrator.
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| [Quote No.41508] Need Area: Friends > General
"The First Amendment [to the US Constitution and a part of the Bill of Rights, guarantees freedom of speech and of the press, among other things] is not a tool of the press. It is a tool of the people. It is not nearly so much a protector of the media as it is a protector of the people's right to know, their right to hear the ideas of others, and their right to have their ideas heard without interference from the government. [Without the facts and hearing other people's views how could anyone be expected to make rational decisions or vote meaningfully in a democracy?]" - Fred Schnaubelt
Quote from 'The Freeman', April 1980.
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| [Quote No.41509] Need Area: Friends > General
"[Government] Power may justly be compared to a great river. While kept within its due bounds it is both beautiful and useful. But when it overflows its banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemmed; it bears down all before it, and brings destruction and desolation wherever it comes. If, then, this is the nature of power, let us at least do our duty, and like wise men who value freedom use our utmost care to support liberty, the only bulwark against lawless power, which in all ages has sacrificed to its wild lust and boundless ambition the blood of the best men that ever lived...." - Andrew Hamilton
(circa 1676 – 1741), Scottish lawyer in the Thirteen Colonies, where he finally settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was best known for his legal victory on behalf of the printer and newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger. This 1735 decision in New York helped to establish that truth is a defense to an accusation of libel. His eloquent defense concluded with saying that the press has 'a liberty both of exposing and opposing tyrannical power by speaking and writing truth.' Quote from The Trial of John Peter Zenger, 1735.
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| [Quote No.41510] Need Area: Friends > General
"Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful." - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(1883 - 1891), philosopher. Quote from his book,'Thus Spake Zarathustra'.
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| [Quote No.41519] Need Area: Friends > General
"The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution [and distortion] of democracy." - Theodore H. White
Respected US journalist
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| [Quote No.41521] Need Area: Friends > General
"In a democracy...good will without competence and competence without good will, are both equivalent formulas for political disaster." - Theodore H. White
Respected US journalist
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| [Quote No.41524] Need Area: Friends > General
"He who builds walls to create exclusion for others builds walls across his own freedom." - Rabindranath Tagore
Indian poet
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| [Quote No.41525] Need Area: Friends > General
"He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the door open." - Rabindranath Tagore
Indian poet
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| [Quote No.41533] Need Area: Friends > General
"Useless laws weaken the necessary laws." - Charles de Montesquieu
(1689 - 1755), philosopher and writer
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| [Quote No.41535] Need Area: Friends > General
"One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
(1929 - 1968), civil-rights leader
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| [Quote No.41538] Need Area: Friends > General
"You shall love your neighbor as you do yourself." - Bible
Leviticus 19:18
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| [Quote No.41546] Need Area: Friends > General
"People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be, until they have learned to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises." - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
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"[Beware of this type of deception:] If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em. It's an old political trick." - Harry Truman
(1884 – 1972), 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953).
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| [Quote No.41548] Need Area: Friends > General
"[Socially, technologically, economically and politically...] There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen." - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
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| [Quote No.41550] Need Area: Friends > General
"[The Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman said, 'There's no such thing as a free lunch.' So if anyone, for example a politician, offers you something for free think about it carefully and try to understand 'why?' and 'how?'. Remember...] There's always free cheese in a mousetrap!" - Ross Hansen
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| [Quote No.41564] Need Area: Friends > General
"[Democracy without unalienable rights is dangerous for a minority. For example...] It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion." - William Ralph Inge
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| [Quote No.41569] Need Area: Friends > General
"Revenge proves its own executioner." - John Ford
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| [Quote No.41573] Need Area: Friends > General
"We have staked the whole future of our new nation not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves...[while respecting each person's inalienable human rights to life, liberty-freedom and the pursuit of happiness and property]" - James Madison
(1751 - 1836), American statesman, political theorist and the fourth President of the United States (1809–1817). He is hailed as the 'Father of the Constitution' for being instrumental in the drafting of the United States Constitution and as the key champion and author of the United States Bill of Rights.
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| [Quote No.41576] Need Area: Friends > General
"Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation..." - Ronald Reagan
US President
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| [Quote No.41577] Need Area: Friends > General
"In a democratic form of government, all the government serves the wishes of the majority of the people. In a socialist-communist form of government, all the people serve the wishes of the minority of the government." - Seymour@imagi-natives.com
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| [Quote No.41579] Need Area: Friends > General
"...we need a nation of ...citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily lives..." - John F. Kennedy
US President
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| [Quote No.41580] Need Area: Friends > General
"If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own - that thing is the preservation of their own liberties and institutions." - Abraham Lincoln
US President
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| [Quote No.41581] Need Area: Friends > General
"The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution [including its Bill of Rights]." - Abraham Lincoln
US President. Quote from September 17, 1859, in a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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