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2011 March 11
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"Let therefore every man, that, appealing to his own heart, feels the least spark of virtue or freedom there, think that it is an honor which he owes himself, and a duty which he owes his country, to bear arms." |
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2011 March 10
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"If a government were trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of a population, what would it do?
1. The use of indirect rather than direct taxes, so that the tax is hidden in the price of goods.
2. Inflation, by which the state reduces the value of everyone else's currency.
3. Borrowing, so as to postpone the necessary taxation.
4. Gift and luxury taxes, where the tax accompanies the receipt or purchase of something special, lessening the annoyance of the tax.
5. “Temporary” taxes, which somehow never get repealed when the emergency passes.
6. Taxes that exploit social conflict, by placing higher taxes on unpopular groups.
7. The threat of social collapse or withholding monopoly government services if taxes are reduced.
8. Collection of the total tax burden in relatively small increments over time, rather than in a yearly lump sum.
9. Taxes whose exact incidence cannot be predicted in advance, thus keeping the taxpayer unaware of just how much he is paying.
10. Extraordinary budget complexity to hide the budget process from public understanding.
11. The use of generalized expenditure categories to make it difficult for outsiders to assess the individual components of the budget." |
When libertarian moral theory is combined with economic theory a compelling conception of the good society emerges. |
"Principio Obstate (Resist from the beginning)." |
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2011 March 09
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"Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit." |
"Power always corrupts, and the power of government to tell people how to live their lives or to transfer money from those who earn it to others is always a temptation to corruption. Taxes and regulations reduce people’s incentive to produce wealth, and government transfer programs reduce people’s incentive to work, to save, and to help family and friends in case of sickness, disability, or retirement. ...[I]t is nonetheless clear that government enterprises are less efficient, less innovative, and more wasteful than private firms.... [C]ompare what it’s like to call American Express versus the IRS to correct problems. Or compare a private apartment building with public housing." |
"You can't save free markets by socialism, I don't know where this idea ever came from. You save free markets by promoting free markets and sound money and balanced budgets. The whole reason why nobody wants to address the real problem is, we're spending a trillion dollars a year overseas running an empire, and it's coming to an end. This country is bankrupt, and we won't admit it. Eventually though, the dollar will go bust, and we will bring our troops home, and we will live within our means, but we ought to do it sensibly, rather than waiting for the collapse of the dollar, and this is what we're doing, we're on the verge of destroying our dollar. And then, you think we have problems now, problems then will be a lot worse, it'd look like the Weimar Republic, or a third world nation. And a lot of people know that, and they're scared to death, but we don't need to be making the problem worse by just propping up everything with more government programs, more inflation, and more helicopters, it won't work." |
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2011 March 08
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"Indeed, it was the enumeration of powers,
not the enumeration of rights in the Bill of Rights,
that was meant by the Framers to be
the principal limitation on government power." |
"If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national
existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and
Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side,
and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other." |
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2011 March 07
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"The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance." |
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