QUOTES OF THE DAY – GOVERNMENT EDITION

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? ~St. Augustine

In a state-run society the government promises you security. But it’s a false promise predicated on the idea that the opposite of security is risk. Nothing could be further from the truth. The opposite of security is insecurity, and the only way to overcome insecurity is to take risks. The gentle government that promises to hold your hand as you cross the street refuses to let go on the other side. ~Theodore Forstmann

Our government has become too responsive to trivial or ephemeral concerns, often at the expense of more important concerns or an erosion of our liberty, and it has made policy priorities more dependent on where TV journalists happen to point their cameras…. As a nation we have lost our sense of tragedy, a recognition that bad things happen to good people. A nation that expects the government to prevent churches from burning, to control the price of bread or gasoline, to secure every job, and to find some villain for every dramatic accident, risks an even larger loss of life and liberty. ~William A. Niskanen, “For a Less Responsive Government,” Cato Policy Report, 1996

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. ~Robert M. Hutchins, Great Books, 1954

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. ~Winston Churchill

If people behaved like governments, you’d call the cops. ~Kelvin Throop

Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. ~James Russell Lowell

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. ~George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, “Maxims: Education,” 1905

Democracy: The state of affairs in which you consent to having your pocket picked, and elect the best man to do it. ~Benjamin Lichtenberg

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. ~P.J. O’Rourke

If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion. ~George Bernard Shaw

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. ~Abraham Lincoln

Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true. ~Polish Proverb

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. ~Karl Marx

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. ~Barry Goldwater

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb. ~Benjamin Franklin

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate? ~Will Rogers

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. ~Will Rogers

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens – and then everybody disagrees. ~Boris Marshalov

A civil servant is sometimes like a broken cannon – it won’t work and you can’t fire it. ~George S. Patton

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. ~Denis Diderot

Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. ~Herbert Hoover, attributed

Talk is cheap – except when Congress does it. ~Cullen Hightower

Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds. ~John Perry Barlow

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good. ~H.L. Mencken

Democracy is an experiment, and the right of the majority to rule is no more inherent than the right of the minority to rule; and unless the majority represents sane, righteous, unselfish public sentiment, it has no inherent right. ~William Allen White (Thanks, Bob)

Many people say that government is necessary because some men cannot be trusted to look after themselves, but anarchists say that government is harmful because no men can be trusted to look after anyone else. ~Nicolas Walter, About Anarchism

Source