Lew Rockwell on government

A core problem with government is that its managers believe that all reality will conform to their wishes if they issue the right orders, pass the right laws, and put the right people in charge.

~ Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “Grand Theft Society,” July 1, 2008

Bernard Baruch on voting

Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing.

~ Bernard Baruch

Ron Paul on personal freedom and the Internet

The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free.

Socialist ideologies blur this line between self reliance and government control because the mistakes of the individual are spread to everyone else. Thus the government becomes very interested in your decisions and way of life, with the justification that you could make a mistake others will have to pay for. The end result is, of course, that everyone loses privacy and control over their own lives. Whether they realize it or not, they are no longer truly free.

~ Ron Paul, Personal Freedom and the Internet (June 30, 2008)

Kevin Duffy on government: illusion and reality

Government is the illusion that we can all live at the expense of everyone else, and the reality that a small band of thieves can live at the expense of the rest of us.

~ Kevin Duffy, Bearing Asset Management, July 2, 2008

James Madison on the right to bear arms

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed — unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

— James Madison, Federalist No. 46 (January 19, 1788)

James Madison
1902-1903

Whitney Tilson on Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway

I sleep well. It's not going to double overnight, but we think it will in five years, which is a 15 percent compounded annual rate. It's the stock you want to own.

~ Whitney Tilson, principal at New York-based hedge fund T2 Partners, "Buffett's Berkshire Has Worst First Half Since 1990," Bloomberg, July 2, 2008

Henry Brook Adams on politics

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.

~ Henry Brook Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1907)