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Once upon a time, government budgets were balanced, our money was sound, the streets were safe, and taxes imposed by all levels of government took less than 10% of our income.
Harry Browne
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Harry Browne
Age: 72 †
Born: 1933
Born: June 17
Died: 2006
Died: March 1
Financial Analyst
Peace Activist
Politician
Radio Personality
Writer
New York City
New York
Harry Edson Browne
Government
Safe
Imposed
Time
Took
Balanced
Levels
Budgets
Liberty
Libertarian
Upon
Economics
Sound
Income
Less
Taxes
Money
Streets
Libertarianism
More quotes by Harry Browne
The marketplace is a wondrous institution. It harnesses the self-interest of each of us and puts it to work for the benefit of all. And it does so without intruding upon our desires, our privacy, or our freedom. It is regulation by reality, not by coercion.
Harry Browne
Communities don't think, don't believe, don't want, don't have needs, don't have interests and don't make decisions. Only individuals have minds that generate desires and needs - and only individuals can make choices and decisions.
Harry Browne
For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise.
Harry Browne
Can you think of a single area of government in which George Bush hasn't already made things worse than Bill Clinton did?
Harry Browne
There was no military reason to drop atomic bombs on Japan. They were used as terrorist weapons - killing innocent people to influence other people.
Harry Browne
The police can't stop an intruder, mugger, or stalker from hurting you. They can pursue him only after he has hurt or killed you. Protecting yourself from harm is your responsibility, and you are far less likely to be hurt in a neighborhood of gun-owners than in one of disarmed citizens - even if you don't own a gun yourself.
Harry Browne
So what is government?... Very simply, it is an agency of coercion. Of course, there are other agencies of coercion - such as the Mafia. So to be more precise, government is the agency of coercion that has flags in front of its offices.
Harry Browne
Everything we know about human nature and about government tells us that individuals using their own money will achieve far more good for themselves and far more for others than politicians spending money they didn't have to work to earn.
Harry Browne
If younger people see older people who haven't planned ahead and have to rely on charity, the young will be more likely to provide for the future. Today when someone plans poorly, the only consequence people see is a demand for more government.
Harry Browne
We may not always recognize it, but government plays a bigger role in our lives than any other single person or institution. We spend nearly half of our lives working to pay for it. Children spend more time in government schools than they do with their parents. Birth, death, marriage, every area of our lives feels the influence of government.
Harry Browne
Give politicians power and it certainly will be abused eventually - if not by today's politicians, then by their successors.
Harry Browne
For most of our history, Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats.
Harry Browne
Social Security is inherently unsound for the simple reason that it's a political program run by politicians for political purposes...Social Security operates on a very simple principle: the politicians take your money from you and squander it.
Harry Browne
Like many people, most Libertarians feel empathy and sympathy for less fortunate people. But they know you can't have perfection in a world of limited resources.
Harry Browne
Republicans campaign like Libertarians and govern like Democrats.
Harry Browne
The important thing is to concentrate upon what you can do - by yourself, upon your own initiative.
Harry Browne
I'm sorry that I can't snap my fingers and undo 50 years of bad American foreign policy.
Harry Browne
Forcing people to be generous isn't humanitarian, effective, compassionate or moral. Only acts that are truly voluntary for all concerned can be truly compassionate.
Harry Browne
Contrary to all the blather we here about the unique goodness of the American people or our religious heritage or anything else, the one thing that set this country apart from all others was the Bill of Rights.
Harry Browne
Politicians are notoriously economically illiterate. And even when they know what would be the right thing, we don't really expect them to do it.
Harry Browne
