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The only things government can do are regulate and redistribute, prohibit and penalize, confiscate and command. Are these the things that liberty is made of? Somebody else's money and an endless list of Thou Shalt Nots?

James Bovard

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James Bovard
Age: 68
Born: 1956
Born: July 22
Author
Journalist
Writer
Ames
Iowa
Money
Shalt
Else
List
Government
Lists
Penalize
Made
Command
Confiscate
Things
Endless
Redistribute
Thou
Nots
Somebody
Prohibit
Liberty
Regulate

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Politicians as a class are dangerous, that people who are seeking power over us are not, by definition, our friends.
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The more people expect from government, the more biased they become against limiting government power.
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We are asking the wrong question. The issue is not who should be trusted with all the power of the Presidency. Instead, we must ask how much power any candidate can be trusted with.
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If so many Americans are looking for the government to save them, then it is hard to have a dignified search for a shepherd in chief.
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It is one of the great tragedies of the US, that most learn most of what they know about the government from the government.
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Foreign aid breeds kleptocracies, or governments of thieves.
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Politicians nowadays treat Americans like medical orderlies treat Alzheimer's patients, telling them anything that will keep them subdued. It doesn't matter what untruths the people are fed because they will not long remember. But in politics, forgotten falsehoods almost guarantee new treachery.
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Dependency is the highest political good - at least for politicians. Since the 1930s, politicians have striven to leave no vote unbought.
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It has been surprising to me that so few conservatives have voiced concern over the precedence that are being set in favor of suppression by this so-called conservative administration.
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The average American family head will be forced to do twenty years' labor to pay taxes in his or her lifetime.
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Governments and citizens blend together only in the imaginations of political theorists. Government is, and always will be, an alien power over private citizens. There is no magic in a ballot box that makes government any less coercive.
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Once freedom is equated with a certain material standard of living, confiscation becomes the path to liberation.
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Not only has the number of government employees multiplied in recent decades, but the rise of government unions further stacks the political odds against private citizens.
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Today's citizen is obliged to find his freedom only in the narrow ruts pre-approved by his bureaucratic overlords. Risk-free liberty is the ideal of the Welfare State: citizens are permitted only liberties which have been declawed, defanged, neutered, certified and wrapped in benevolent restrictions.
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There is no virtue in denying the law of gravity, and there should be no virtue in denying the limitations of government. ... The more we glorify government, the more liberties we will lose.
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It is amazing to think after all that has happened in this country in the last few years, the last few decades, that so many people have this blind faith that government is our friend and therefore, we don’t need protections against it.
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American democracy is capsizing as a result of the vast increase in the number of government dependents and government employees.
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The more freedoms Americans lose, the more dangerous government becomes.
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How many McDonald's gift certificates would it take to sway a lot of Americans to pledge to never publicly criticize the U.S, President?
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Freedom is whatever the president says it is, pending revision.
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