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If conservatives really believed in individual liberty, as they endlessly claim and if they used both halves of their brains then they'd be libertarians. Instead, they sabotage themselves, and their cause, by constantly generating one spurious reason after another to deprive other people of their freedom.

L. Neil Smith

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L. Neil Smith
Age: 75 †
Born: 1946
Born: May 12
Died: 2021
Died: August 27
Author
Novelist
Politician
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Denver
Colorado
Lester Neil Smith III
Reason
Liberty
Brains
Spurious
Really
Causes
Libertarian
Halves
People
Brain
Claim
Libertarians
Half
Believed
Generating
Freedom
Claims
Sabotage
Individual
Constantly
Deprive
Another
Cause
Endlessly
Used
Instead
Conservatives

More quotes by L. Neil Smith

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The only hope we have is the Internet. We must strive to keep it free.
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Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if pitiable, creatures. Those who sell the liberty of others for wealth, power, or even a moments respite deserve only the end of a rope.
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Know when to give up a lost cause. Anyone who needs to be persuaded to be free, doesn't deserve to be.
L. Neil Smith
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And yet, what is bravery but the capacity to reject our fears, ignore and supress them, then go on to do whatever it is we are afraid to do.
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[N]o one's ever been able to show me any difference between democracy and brute force. It's just a majority ganging up on a minority with the minority giving in to avoid getting massacred.
L. Neil Smith
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The Bill of Rights isn't about us, it's about them . It isn't a list of things we're permitted to do, it's a list of things they aren't allowed even to consider.
L. Neil Smith
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One thing about a police state, you can always find the police.
L. Neil Smith
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The most dangerous and successful conspiracies take place in public, in plain sight, under the clear, bright light of day -- usually with TV cameras focused on them.
L. Neil Smith
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There's a big difference between keeping the peace, which is something folks do pretty well themselves, and enforcing the law, which is another thing altogether.
L. Neil Smith
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Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220 pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110 pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out. Is that evil? Is that wrong?
L. Neil Smith
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People in the mass media tend more and more every day to look and act like elected and appointed officials.
L. Neil Smith
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Just as liberalism is the main force that drives conservatism and maintains its popularity in some quarters, conservatism is the reason liberalism continues to enjoy the traction that it does in our poor civilization.
L. Neil Smith
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What happened in America in the 1860s was a war of secession, a war of independence, no different in principle from what happened in America in the 1770s and 1780s.
L. Neil Smith
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Try never to speak of your enemies by name. Any publicity is still publicity - and there are those for whom your disapproval constitutes a recommendation.
L. Neil Smith
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The fact is that surveys which media people openly admit to show that fewer than twelve percent of their customers believe they're doing a good job, while the average profit margin in television is in the neighborhood of eighty percent.
L. Neil Smith
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Choose your allies carefully: it's highly unlikely that you'll ever be held morally, legally, or historically accountable for the actions of your enemies.
L. Neil Smith
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I'm tired of being lied to by government, by the media, and by every corporation I have anything to do with.
L. Neil Smith
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We are expected to believe that anyone who objects to the Department of Homeland Security or the USA Patriot Act is a terrorist, and that the only way to preserve our freedom is to hand it over to the government for safekeeping.
L. Neil Smith
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Money, first and foremost, is a medium of communication, conveying the information we call 'price'. Government control of the money supply is censorship, a violation of the First Amendment. Inflation is a lie.
L. Neil Smith
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Forget 'redeeming social value,' dirty pictures are fun. When I die I want my ashes sprinkled over a nudist camp.
L. Neil Smith