taxation

It is curious to note that when for reasons of conscience, people refuse to kill, they are often exempted from active military duty. But there are no exemptions for people who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to financially support the bureaucracy that actually does the killing. Apparently, the state takes money more seriously than life.

The more laws and restrictions there are,The poorer people become....The more rules and regulations,The more thieves and robbers.

The instant that any government obtains a monetary printing press, it becomes a deeply dishonest government, empowered to rob people by stealth. A government with the power to print money knows no limits.

Justice requires that you should not place the burdens of one man on the shoulders of another man, even though he is better able to bear them. In plainer words, that you should not make one set of men pay for what is used by another set of men.

It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights _ the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery _ hay and a barn for human cattle.

Set men up to rule their fellow-men, to treat them as mere soulless material with which they may deal as they please, and the consequence is that you sweep away every moral landmark and turn this world into a place of selfish striving, hopeless confusion, trickery and violence, a mere scrambling ground for the strongest or the most cunning or the most numerous.

When people say 'let's do something about it', they mean 'let's get hold of the political machinery so that we can do something to somebody else.' And that somebody is invariably you.

To make a contented slave, you must make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate his power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery. The man that takes his earnings, must be able to convince him that he has a perfect right to do so. It must not depend upon mere force; the slave must know no Higher Law than his master's will. The whole relationship must not only demonstrate, to his mind, its necessity, but its absolute rightfulness.

There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means.

In particular, the State has arrogated to itself a compulsory monopoly over police and military services, the provision of law, judicial decision-making, the mint and the power to create money, unused land ("the public domain"), streets and highways, rivers and coastal waters, and the means of delivering mail...the State relies on control of the levers of propaganda to persuade its subjects to obey or even exalt their rulers.

Without anarchy, there would be chaos.

Socialism is not a meritocracy. By definition it places increasingly confining restraints on those that succeed the most.

Green recorded these initial thoughts about government: "Either the people will pay direct taxes, or they will pay none if they know it; and if they don't know when they pay taxes, it is quite time for the prudent, economical administration of government that they did. The Treasury should just supply the moderate wants of the administration of government; an overflowing treasury brings with it corruption and fraud. It has been the curse of nations, and, profiting by the experience of the past, it becomes the present to avoid the instruments of their overflow.