Harry Browne Men Quotations

Some people object to libertarian ideas because there are too many irresponsible people in the world - people who will cause trouble if the government doesn't restrain them.

Libertarians understand a very simple fact of life: Government doesn't work. It can't deliver the mail on time, it doesn't keep our cities safe, it doesn't educate our children properly.

Once upon a time, government budgets were balanced, our money was sound, the streets were safe, and taxes imposed by all levels of government took less than 10% of our income.

Our government, taxes, and ideas of freedom are already duplicates of the Old World. Our politicians determine how we should live our lives - and our individual liberties are sacrificed for the benefit of the Fatherland.

Everything you want in life has a price connected to it. There's a price to pay if you want to make things better, a price to pay just for leaving things as they are, a price for everything.

Can you think of a single area of government in which George Bush hasn't already made things worse than Bill Clinton did?

If the Fed had a war on abortion like its war on poverty or war on drugs, within five years men would be having abortions!

The problem is big government. If whoever controls government can impose his way upon you, you have to fight constantly to prevent the control from being harmful. With small, limited government, it doesn't much matter who controls it, because it can't do you much harm.

I am running for president because it is obvious that no Democrat or Republican is ever going to stop the relentless growth of the federal government. only a Libertarian is going to set you free.

Government doesn't work. You work, I work, Federal Express works, Microsoft works, the Salvation Army works, Alcoholics Anonymous works, but government doesn't.

Government doesn't work. That's the first lesson we must learn if we want to improve society.

Once we realize that government doesn't work, we'll know that the only way to improve government is by reducing its size - by doing away with laws, by getting rid of programs, by making government spend and tax less, by reducing government as far as we can.

The seeds of today's runaway government were planted when it was decided that government should help those who can't help themselves. From that modest, compassionate beginning to today's out-of-control mega-state, there's a straight, unbroken line. Once the door was open, once it was settled that the government should help some people at the expense of others, there was no stopping it.

I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.

You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.

If younger people see older people who haven't planned ahead and have to rely on charity, the young will be more likely to provide for the future. Today when someone plans poorly, the only consequence people see is a demand for more government.

The press is hostile to the idea of liberty. Most people in the press are for big government. Most people think that the solution to anything, whether it's health care problems, education, whatever it is - it's got to be more government.

Asset forfeiture is a mockery of the Bill of Rights. There is no presumption of innocence, no need to prove you guilty (or even charge you with a crime), no right to a jury trial, no right to confront your accuser, no right to a court-appointed attorney (even if the government has just stolen all your money), and no right to compensation for the property that's been taken.

Democratic politicians want to solve the crisis of poor education by taking more of your money and using it to reduce classroom sizes in the government schools. Republican politicians want to solve the crisis by taking more of your money to provide vouchers to a handful of the poorest students in each area, paying for a part of the tuition expense at private schools. But before long this 'reform' would make those private schools indistinguishable from the government schools ... Vouchers are an excellent way for the government to increase control over private schools.

Give government the weapons to fight your enemy and it will use them against you.

It isn't possible to give government just a little control over the economy and our lives. Once we cede that power to government, it uses the power to take more from us. That's why every year the government controls more of our lives.

Government seems to operate on the principle that if even one individual is incapable of using his freedom competently, no one can be allowed to be free.

The income tax is the biggest single intrusion suffered by the American people. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes billions of dollars. It penalizes savings and creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy. It is incompatible with a free society, and we aren’t libertarians if we tolerate it.

Social Security is a fraudulent scheme in which the government collect money from you for your retirement - and immediately spend the money on something else.

Whatever the issue, let freedom offer us a hundred choices, instead of having government force one answer on everyone.

The coercive power of government is always a beacon to those who want to dominate others -- summoning the worst dregs of society to Washington to use that power to impose their will upon others.

Conservatives say the government can't end poverty by force, but they believe it can use force to make people moral. Liberals say government can't make people be moral, but they believe it can end poverty. Neither group attempts to explain why government is so clumsy and destructive in one area but a paragon of efficiency and benevolence in the other.

The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it.

I say that the Second Amendment doesn't allow for exceptions - or else it would have read that the right "to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, unless Congress chooses otherwise." And because there are no exceptions, I disagree with my fellow panelists who say the existing gun laws should be enforced. Those laws are unconstitutional [and] wrong - because they put you at a disadvantage to armed criminals, to whom the laws are no inconvenience.

Once we realize that government doesn't work, we will stop dreaming that this or that social problem can be solved by passing a law - or by creating a new government program - or by electing someone who will make Washington more efficient or cost-conscious.

The American heritage was one of individual liberty, personal responsibility and freedom from government ... Unfortunately ... that heritage has been lost. Americans no longer have the freedom to direct their own lives ... Today, it is the government that is free - free to do whatever it wants. There is no subject, no issue, no matter ... that is not subject to legislation.

Immigrants used to come to America seeking freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from government. Now they come looking for free health care, free education, and a free lunch.

Government is force, pure and simple. There's no way to sugar-coat that. And because government is force, it will attract the worst elements of society - people who want to use government to avoid having to earn their living and to avoid having to persuade others to accept their ideas voluntarily.

Government cripples you, then hands you a crutch and says, 'See, if it wasn't for us, you couldn't walk.'

If you ask the government to impose morality, then moral questions will be decided by whoever has the most political power.

We may not always recognize it, but government plays a bigger role in our lives than any other single person or institution. We spend nearly half of our lives working to pay for it. Children spend more time in government schools than they do with their parents. Birth, death, marriage, every area of our lives feels the influence of government.

The government's War on Poverty has transformed poverty from a short-term misfortune into a career choice.

In almost all matters, the real question should be: why are we letting government handle this?

The bad consequences of a government program usually don't show up immediately. And the delay may be long enough to hide the connection between the program and its results. So government never has to say it's sorry - never has to take responsibility for ht misery it causes. Instead it can blame everything on personal greed, profit-hungry corporations, and the 'private sector.' And the government's cure for the problems is to impose bigger programs, more regulation and higher taxes.

So what is government?... Very simply, it is an agency of coercion. Of course, there are other agencies of coercion - such as the Mafia. So to be more precise, government is the agency of coercion that has flags in front of its offices.

[Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964], many governments in southern states forced people to segregate by race. Civil rights advocates fought to repeal these state laws, but failed. So they appealed to the federal government, which responded with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But this federal law didn't simply repeal state laws compelling segregation. It also prohibited voluntary segregation. What had been mandatory became forbidden. Neither before nor after the Civil Rights Act were people free to make their own decisions about who they associated with.

Everything we know about human nature and about government tells us that individuals using their own money will achieve far more good for themselves and far more for others than politicians spending money they didn't have to work to earn.

The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, "See if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk".

Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free.

A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot - because the first leads inevitably to the second.

I won't try to describe the various ways I tried to get the cake plate back to her without being confronted with a request for my judgment of her cake. Suffice to say that her well-intentioned favor interfered with my own plans.

Since no one but you can know what's best for you, government control can't make your life better.