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.
Category: government
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.
Our current madness
It is a madness to think that the Founders created a republic wherein people are meant to keep the least possible amount of the money they earn, and that the rest must be paid in taxes to an unaccountable bipartisan kleptocracy, one that reliably wastes it on unnecessary wars; unwanted, unneeded and illegal immigrants; slackers, thugs, and legally favored minorities; and innumerable foreigners seeking handouts for their Swiss bank accounts from Americans who make cars at Chevy, or mine the coal, or carry the mail, or protect the populace from criminals, or plow the snow, or deliver packages, or pick-up the garbage, or defend the republic with their lives and limbs.
What government must to do be considered legitimate
Leave each man to run his career in life in his own way, only guaranteeing to him that whatever he does in the way of industry, economy, prudence, sound judgment, etc., shall redound to his own welfare and shall not be diverted to someone else’s benefit.
Limiting our liberties
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
Government vs. the people
You can’t be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy.
Centralized power
A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interests, combined in one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in banks.
The camel’s nose under the tent
A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot — because the first leads inevitably to the second.
The enemy is the State
[The State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.