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Why
By
Gail
Lightfoot “A
love of liberty
is planted by nature in the breasts of all men.” Dionysius
of “No
man escapes when freedom
fails, the best men rot in filthy jails. And
those who cried 'Appease,' 'Appease,' Are
hanged by those they tried to please!” By
"Anonymous") “ William
Allen White, “ Let
us dare to read, think, speak and write." John
Adams, August [1765] Let
us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve
to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of
the latter. The
necessity of the times, more than ever, calls
for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance.
Let
us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty,
we
encourage it, and involve others in our doom." It
is a very serious consideration ... that
millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event. Samuel
Adams, Speech [1771] "No
people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor
can any be easily subdued, when
knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On
the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in
their Manners, they
will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." Samuel
Adams (letter to James Warren, 4 November 1775) “ a
nation will be great in both in [the
same]
proportion as it is free.” Thomas
Jefferson Yesterday,
the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in a
greater perhaps never was nor will be decided among men. A
resolution passed without one dissenting colony, "that
these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, free and
independent
States." John
Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams [July 3, 1776] "If
ye love wealth better than liberty,
the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom,
go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down
and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you,
and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." Samuel
Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. THE
PEOPLE ARE THE ONLY TRUE GUARDIANS OF THEIR OWN RIGHTS Thomas
Jefferson (1809) “[ has
a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom,
This
has been her Declaration: this has been, as
far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit,
her practice.
“ John
Quincy Adams, Speech to
the What
good does it do me, after all, if an
ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my
pleasures will be tranquil and races
ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing
me the need even to think about such things, if
that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is
also absolute
master of my liberty
and my life; if it
monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it
languishes, everything
must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish? Alexis
de Tocqueville, Democracy
in America [1835-1840] I
please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be
just to all men, and to treat
the individual with respect as a neighbor; which
even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose, if a few
were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who
fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A
State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast
as it ripened, would
prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which
also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen. Henry
David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” [1849] “The
greatest dangers to liberty
lurk in insidious
encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” Supreme
Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Whitney
v. “Most
of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people
who ignored the principle of individual
freedom,
except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical
zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula
of their own. The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters,
and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon
human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set
themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their
views on all others – with the abiding assurance that the end
justifies the means.” Henry
Grady Weaver, The Mainspring of Human Progress
[1947] “For
the majority of people liberty
means only the
system and the administrators they are used to.
“ Albert
Jay Nock, Selected
Letters of Albert Jay Nock “...
freedom
can exist at no lesser price than the danger of damnation; and if
freedom
is
indeed the
essence of man's being,
that
which distinguishes him from the beasts, he
must be free to choose his worst as well as his best end. Unless
he can choose his worst, he cannot choose his best.” Frank
S. Meyer, In Defense of
Freedom [1962] The
smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those
who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. “The
most drastic deprivation which any person can suffer is that of the
freedom
to
utilize and enjoy the faculties which nature has given him and which
his will and desire have developed. Keep
a man from exercising his mind, his body, his faculties in the pursuit
of his own wishes and delights, keep
him from enjoying the fruits of his efforts -- and you have done
everything evil to him that you can. The
greatest desire of each person, in short, is to be
free to get the most he can out of life. There
is no other way objectively to define social goals than to call
them the sum of those individual goals which can be harmonized in
society.” Slyvestro
Petro, The Freeman
[November 1972] “Though
freedom
and
wealth are both good things which most of us desire and though we often
need both to obtain what we wish, they still remain different. Whether
or not I am my own master and can follow my own choice and whether the
possibilities from which I must choose are many or few are two entirely
different questions. The courtier living in the lap of luxury but at the
beck and call of his prince may be much less free than a poor peasant or
artisan, less able to live his own life and to choose his own
opportunities for usefulness.” Friedrich
A. Hayek, The
Constitution of Liberty [1974] The
only freedom
which counts is the freedom
to do what some other people think to be wrong. There
is no point in demanding freedom
to do that which all will applaud. All
the so-called liberties
or rights
are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if
such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their
own liberties threatened. This
is always true, even when we speak of the
freedom
to worship, of
the right
of free speech or
association,
or
of
public assembly.
If
we are to allow freedoms
at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty
itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if
it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There
is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse
is the very hallmark of liberty. Lord
Hailsham, The Dilemma of Democracy [1978] "For
those who want lives of freedom,
normality, peace, prosperity, and harmony, there
is but one solution: Dismantle the empire; bring the troops
home and discharge them into the private sector; stop
meddling in the affairs of other nations; stop
trying to dominate and control the world; stop
going abroad in search of monsters to destroy; stop
trying to be the world's policeman." Jacob
Hornberger, Future of Freedom Foundation, July, 2005 "A
libertarian-leaning colleague once said to me that "Freedom
is extremely valuable, but it is not the only value." Of
course it is not; charity
and mercy and bravery and wisdom are all important values, too. The
vital thing, though, is that freedom
is
the only Pursuing
values other than freedom with the tools of politics leads with absolute
certainty –
as
long as men rule other men – –
to
tyranny, slavery, and dictatorship." Susan
Hogarth on LewRockwell.com “The
most serious dangers for American freedom
and the American way of life do not come from without.” Ludwig
von Mises "So
this is how Senator
Padme Amidala, Star Wars Episode III “If
you're tired of 'of the politicians, by the politicians, and for
the politicians,' vote Libertarian." Andrew
Key, Libertarian |