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2026 February 26
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"No matter what anyone may say
about making the rich and the corporations pay taxes,
in the end they come out of the people who toil." |
"It is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects --
military, political, economic, and what not.
But in a way things are much simpler than that.
The State exists simply to promote and to protect
the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life.
A husband and wife chatting over a fire,
a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub,
a man reading a book in his own room
or digging in his own garden --
that is what the State is there for.
And unless they are helping to increase
and prolong and protect such moments,
all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police,
economics, etc., are simply a waste of time." |
"Subsidies entail politicians’ taking the citizen’s
paycheck and then using it to buy his submission." |
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2026 February 25
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"But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave." |
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2026 February 24
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"Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life." |
"For my part I think it is a less evil that some criminals should escape,
than that the government should play an ignoble part." |
"A free man is he that, in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to." |
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2026 February 23
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"Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die." |
"Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society." |
"Though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire." |
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