"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."H. L. MenckenThe legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle—a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game…. If the right pressure could be applied to him he would be cheerfully in favor of chiropractic, astrology or cannibalism. H. L. Mencken“The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.” H. L. MenckenEvery decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. H. L. Mencken Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. H. L. Mencken Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good. H. L. Mencken I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time. H. L. Mencken It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office. H. L. Mencken "The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality." H. L. MenckenAnd what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps. H. L. Mencken The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. Thomas Jefferson The history of liberty is the history of the limitations placed on the government. Woodrow Wilson Tyranny is always better organized than freedom. Thomas Paine There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encrochment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation. James Madison
They that can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor saftey. Ben Franklin
Today we need a nation of Minutemen: citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. John F Kennedy
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Thomas Jefferson
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. Gerald R. Ford
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater
The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. Thomas Jefferson
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. Justice Louis Brandeis - 1928
Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. This history of liberty is a history of resistance. Woodrow Wilson The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts. Edmund Burke 1899
We are fast approaching the stage in the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest period of human history; the stage of rule by brute force. Ayn Rand
Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism make each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. Alexis de Tocqueville
To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them. George Mason
As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness. Habit is a powerfull force, and we no longer feel as intensely as we once would have the constriction of our liberties that would have been utterly intolerable a mere half century ago. Judge Robert Bork
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty Thomas Jefferson
When liberty is taken away by force, it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default, it can never be recovered. Dorothy Thompson
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it. Thomas Jefferson
The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty. Eugene McCarthy '; It is a cruel hoax to seek to persuade the American people that the Bill of Rights should be watered down in response to rising crime rates. Nicholas Katzenbach
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. William Pitt
Do not critize your government when out of the country. Never cease to do so when at home. Winston Churchill
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