Friedman: Equality, Force & Freedom

"The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interest." --Milton Friedman

Gaber: Economic vs Political Power

"Always remember the difference between economic power and political power: You can refuse to hire someone‘s services or buy his products in the private sector and go somewhere else instead. In the public sector, though, if you refuse to accept a politician‘s or bureaucrat‘s product or services you go to jail. Ultimately, after all, all regulations are observed and all taxes are paid at gunpoint." --Rick Gaber

Hornberger: Taxes

"Every day, IRS agents levy liens on homes, bank accounts, and businesses; they confiscate cars, furniture, boats, and other personal property without the constitutional protections of due notice, hearing, and due process. If a person forcibly resists, government agents kill him for resisting arrest." --Jacob Hornberger

Hornberger: The Statist‘s Prayer

"O mighty state, we worship and adore you. You provide us our sustenance when we are in need—our food, our housing, our medical care, our schooling. ... You provide us our daily bread with no sweat at all. You make us good, O mighty state, because you provide welfare for the poor, the elderly, businessman, foreigners, and all others who benefit from your largess. We praise you, O mighty state. We give you thanks." -- The Statist‘s Prayer by Jacob Hornberger

Hospers: governments

"By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments... The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments—that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity." --John Hospers

Mises: Action

"In the land of the lotus-eaters there is no action. Action arises only from need, from dissatisfaction. It is purposeful striving towards something. Its ultimate end is always to get rid of a condition which is conceived to be deficient—to fulfill a need, to achieve satisfaction, to increase happiness." --Ludwig von Mises

"Action is an attempt to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory one. We call such a willfully induced alteration an exchange." --Ludwig von Mises

"The vigorous man industriously striving for the improvement of his condition acts neither more nor less than the lethargic man who sluggishly takes things as they come. For to do nothing and to be idle are also action, they too determine the course of events." --Ludwig von Mises

Huxley: A really efficient totalitarian state

"A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers." --Aldous Huxley