"Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." | by: | P. J. O'Rourke
(1947-2022) US humorist, journalist, & political commentator |
Source: | Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut (Atlantic Monthly Press 1995) |
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