Government machinery has been described as a marvelous labor-saving device, which enables ten men to do the work of one.
Category: government
Who is non-essential?
If we have to slog through another shutdown debate, can we at least define our terms? I.E.: ‘Non-essential government employee’ … is redundant.
The best argument for small government
The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.
The misfortune of government
It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.
Don’t hand over your powers
Powers once assumed are never relinquished, just as bureaucracies, once created, never die.
Choose freedom
While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.
Too much of a bad thing
The problem with our kakistocracy is that there are too many persons who are over-qualified for positions in government.
Why does the state exist?
It is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects — military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden — that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.
Protect us from force and fraud
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
What our Federal government should be
The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign affairs. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our General Government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.