Robert Higgs on government

The beginning of political wisdom is the realization that despite everything you've always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed it is out to get you.

~ Robert Higgs

Mao Zedong on the violence behind socialism

Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

~ Mao Zedong, 1938 speech

Butler Shaffer on interpreting the Constitution

The Constitution, itself, should remind us that “laws” do not exist in a vacuum, but are the products of human action which, in turn, is behavior driven by people pursuing their self-interests. With legislation created by a political system that enjoys a monopoly on the legal use of force, it is clear that laws are but the means by which some people pursue their ends at the expense of others.

From the very creation of the national government, to how its different branches would act, there has always been a fuzziness as to the meaning of words used in the Constitution. This is due to the fundamental nature of all words. Being abstractions, their application to real-world events inherently depends upon their interpretation. When the Supreme Court tells us that it will have such authority, it is telling us that the government thus created by this document will be the interpreter of its own supposed “limited powers.”

~ Butler Shaffer, "The Myth of the Constitution," LewRockwell.com, April 5, 2017

Anthony Sutton on the dangers of "experienced" men in government

The Public relations explanation for business men turned bureaucrats is that businessmen have the experience and should become involved in public service. The intent in practice has been to control industry. It should not, however, surprise us if the corporate socialists go to Washington D.C. after election of their favorite sons to take over the reins of monopoly administration.

~Anthony C. Sutton, author, Wall Street and FDR, "FDR and the Corporate Socialists", Chapter 9

Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman on the Progressive Era

After 1896 and 1900, then, America entered a progressive and predominately Republican era. Compulsory cartelization in the name of "progressivism" began to invade every aspect of American economic life. The railroads had begun the parade with the formation of the ICC in the 1880s, but now field after field was being centralized and cartelized in the name of "efficiency," "stability," "progress," and the general welfare. ... In particular, various big business groups, led by the J.P. Morgan interests, often gathered in the National Civic Federation and other think tanks and pressure organizations, saw that the voluntary cartels and the industrial movements of the late 1890s had failed to achieve monopoly prices in industry. Therefore, they decided to turn to governments, state and federal, to curb the wins of competition and to establish forms of compulsory cartels, in the name, of course, of "curbing big business monopoly" and advancing the general welfare.

~ Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman, as quoted in G. Edward Griffin, The Creature of Jekyll Island, page 434

Ayn Rand on government threat to individual rights

Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights; it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights, a government is man's deadliest enemy. It is not as protection against private actions, but against governmental actions that the Bill of Rights was written.

~ Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)