Category: Thought

A tax can never be favorable to the public welfare, except by the good use that is made of its proceeds.

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required.

It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradation we surmount the force of local prejudice as we enlarge our acquaintance with the world.

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

Shameless sponging on friends and relatives … [Karl] Marx affected a hatred and contempt for the very material resource he was too anxious to cadge and use so recklessly. Marx created an entire philosophy around his own corrupt attitudes toward money.

It is not the business of the law to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright.

The First Amendment says nothing about your getting paid for saying anything. It just says you can say it. I don’t believe that if a corporation pulls all the money out of you or a network pulls their money away or you get fired, you’re being censored.

We all proposition our grocer in the following fashion: “We’re not going to tell you when we’re going to shop; we’re not going to tell you what we’re going to buy; we’re not going to tell you the quantity we’re going to buy — but we will fire you if you don’t have what we want when we do come into the store.”

This is why socialism is evil. It employs evil means, coercion or taking the property of one person, to accomplish good ends, helping one’s fellow man. Helping one’s fellow man in need, by reaching into one’s own pockets, is a laudable and praiseworthy goal. Doing the same through coercion and reaching into another’s pockets has no redeeming features and is worthy of condemnation.

It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.