Government’ s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it; If it keeps moving, regulate it…and if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
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. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.
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Henry George (1839-1897) - American Economist and Author (via phabian)
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When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized.
What sort of society do you think we’d have if you had people saying that ‘It’s the state’s job to find me a job, it’s the state’s job to house me, it’s the state’s job to look after my family’? … Freedom is inseparable from personal responsibility…
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
The state that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting by fools.
Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws. And asks no omen but his country’s cause.
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Homer (“Smyrns of Chios”)
The Iliad (bk. XII, l. 283), (Pope’s translation)
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From this perspective, religion is not innate, but rather a cultural development that we might call “cognitive-emotional cheesecake”. I adapt this metaphor from Steven Pinker’s claim that music is not innate, but rather amounts to “auditory cheesecake”. A preference for cheesecake is not innate, since cheesecake did not exist during the early stages of human development. But preferences for sugar and fat are innate, and cheesecake cleverly combines them in an appealing way. Similarly, I conjecture, religion is appealing because it combines the psychological needs for explanations and emotional reassurance.
