It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Mencken’s Notebooks, Chapter 369 (Thank you, Wayne Simpson, for the citation.)Ģ5. The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it. Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. When the government’s boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.ġ9. The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.ġ8. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.ġ7. Still one thing more, fellow-citizens-a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society. Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none. The true danger is when Liberty is nibbled away, for expedients. There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.ġ3. (Popularized by Mark Twain.)įinal Accounting in the Estate of A.B. No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.ġ1. Government is not reason it is not eloquence it is force. laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corruptġ0. Parliament of Whores : A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.Ĩ. One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.ħ. Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, Tue, Nov 11, 1755Ħ. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. BOSTON: CHARLES C LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN. JOHN ADAMS, SECOND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, BY HIS GRANDSON CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. War is just one more big government program.Ĥ. Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Libertyģ. America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.Įverybody’s Political What’s What (1944) Ch.
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