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Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

the legislator who is wholly or in great part uninformed concerning the masses of facts which he must examine before his opinion on a proposed law can be of any value, and who nevertheless helps to pass that law, can no more be absolved if misery and mortality result, than the journeyman druggist can be absolved when death is caused by the medicine he ignorantly prescribes.

Herbert Spencer, The Man versus the State, with SixEssays on Government, Society and Freedom [1884]

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

In a country where the sole employer is the State, oppositionmeans death by slow starvation. The old principle: who doesnot work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: whodoes not obey shall not eat.L. Trotsky, 1937.But while this is a truth of which we must never lose sight,nothing is more fatal than the present fashion among intellectual leaders of extolling security at the expense of freedom. It is essential that we should re-Iearn frankly to face the fact that freedom can only be had at a price and that as individuals we must be prepared to make severe material sacrifices to preserve our liberty. If we want to retain this we must regain the conviction on which the rule of liberty in the Anglo-Saxon countries has been based and which Benjamin Franklin expressed in a phrase applicable to us in our lives as individuals no less than as nations: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

F.A Hayek

The Road to Serfdom

1944

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

You may look at the question from any point of view you like, but if you examine it dispassionately, you will see that no good can come from legal or illegal plunder. We do not deny that it may bring for Mr. Protectionist or his industry, or if you wish for domestic industry, a profit of five francs. But we affirm that it will also give rise to two losses: one for James Goodfellow, who pays fifteen francs for what he used to get for ten; the other for domestic industry, which no longer receives the difference. Make your own choice of which of these two losses compensates for the profit that we admit. The one you do not choose constitutes no less a dead loss.Moral: To use force is not to produce, but to destroy. Heavens! If to use force were to produce, France would be much richer than she is.

Frédéric Bastiat, Selected Essays on political Economy [1848]

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

And according to this proper and generally received meaning of the word, a freeman is he that, in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to. But when the words free and liberty are applied to anything but bodies, they are abused; for that which is not subject to motion is not to subject to impediment: and therefore, when it is said, for example, the way is free, no liberty of the way is signified, but of those that walk in it without stop. And when we say a gift is free, there is not meant any liberty of the gift, but of the giver, that was not bound by any law or covenant to give it. So when wespeak freely, it is not the liberty of voice, or pronunciation, but of the man, whom no law hath obliged to speak otherwise than he did. Lastly, from the use of the words free will, no liberty can be inferred of the will, desire, or inclination, but the liberty of the man; which consisteth in this, that he finds no stop in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclinationto do.

Leviathan or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill.

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

In politics (where such puerilities are less innocent), Socialism has introduced the doctrine of energetic means of transition, the violence of revolutionary practices, life and material interests sacrificed en masse to what is ideal and chimerical. But what Socialism affects, above all, is a certain show and appearance of religion! This is only one of the Socialist tactics, it is true—such tactics are always disgraceful to a school when they lead to hypocrisy.These Socialists are perpetually talking to us of Christ; but Iwould ask them, how it is that while they acknowledge thatChrist, the innocent par excellence, prayed in His agony that “the cup might pass from Him,” adding, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done,” they should think it strange that mankind at large should be called upon to exercise resignation also.

THE BASTIAT COLLECTION

FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT

1863

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

The tragedy of collectivist thought is that while it starts out tomake reason supreme, it ends by destroying reason because it misconceives the process on which the growth of reasondepends. It may indeed be said that it is the paradox of allcollectivist doctrine and its demand for the "conscious" controlor "conscious" planning that they necessarily lead to thedemand that the mind of some individual should rulesupreme-while only the individualist approach to social phenomena makes us recognise the super-individual forces which guide the growth of reason. Individualism is thus an attitude of humility before this social process and of tolerance to other opinions, and is the exact opposite of that intellectual hubris which is at the root of the demand for comprehensive direction of the social process.

The Road to Serfdom

F.A.Hayek

1944

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

Now I would ask, Are the people who live under our laws better fed because there is less bread, meat, and sugar in the country? Are they better clothed because there is less cloth and linen? Better warmed because there is less coal? Better assisted in their labor because there are fewer tools and less iron, copper, and machinery?Restrictive laws always land us in this dilemma: Either youadmit that they produce scarcity, or you do not. If you admit it,you avow by the admission that you inflict on the people all the injury in your power. If you do not admit it, you deny having restricted the supply and raised prices, and consequently you deny having favored the producer.

THE BASTIAT COLLECTION

FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT

ECONOMIC SOPHISMS—FIRST SERIES 1850

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

The corruption of this government generally begins with that of the principles.The principle of democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is extinct, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality, and when each citizen would fain be upon a level with those whom he has chosen to command him. Then the people, incapable of bearing the very power they have delegated, want to manage everything themselves, to debate for the senate, to execute for the magistrate, and to decide for the judges.When this is the case, virtue can no longer subsist in the republic.

The Spirit of Laws

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

1748

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

Have you ever heard anyone say: “Taxes are the best investment; they are a life-giving dew. See how many families they keep alive, and follow in imagination their indirect effects on industry; they are infinite, as extensive as life itself.”The advantages that government officials enjoy in drawing their salaries are what is seen. The benefits that result for their suppliers are also what is seen. They are right under your nose.But the disadvantage that the taxpayers try to free themselves from is what is not seen, and the distress that results from it for the merchants who supply them is something further that is not seen, although it should stand out plainly enough to be seen intellectually.

Frédéric Bastiat

Selected Essays on

Political Economy [1848]

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

In the history of human society, a similar generalization is possible. The human individual is found, not inprimitive life, but late in the scale of social evolution.Individuality is a social product, The savage is not a free,self-conscious person, who can set himself off against the group, and feel himself an isolated centre of power. His life is wrapped up in the group life. In the great barbarian states like Ancient Egypt or China, the life of the individual was so controlled by social tradition, and innovation was so ruthlessly crushed out that individuality had little scope. Greece and Judea gave larger scope to individual variation, but the individual still felt himself bound up with his group, and was stoned, given hemlock, or crucified if he challenged the existing social order too seriously. But note that in all this we have merely a widening and multiplying of social relationships, and that the individual gains freedom from one set of social relationships only by coming into others.The same degree of social power, luring men toward the ditch, exists in the dollar in each case, but the response is very different in the two cases.

THE VALUE OF MONEY

Benjamin Anderson

1917

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

The delusion of the day is to enrich all classes at the expense of each other; it is to generalize plunder under pretense of organizing it. Now, legal plunder may be exercised in an infinite multitude of ways. Hence come an infinite multitude of plans for organization; tariffs, protection, perquisites, gratuities, encouragements, progressive taxation, free public education, right to work, right to profit, right to wages, right to assistance, right to instruments of labor, gratuity of credit, etc., etc. And it is all these plans, taken as a whole, with what they have in common, legal plunder, that takes the name of socialism.

THE LAW

FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT

1850

Good Morning Eveyone: Quote of the Day

It is significant that the nationalisation of thought has proceeded everywhere pari passu with the nationalisation ofindustry. E.H. CarrThe Twenty Years' Crisis1939

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

A conquering nation does not always wage offensive war. Its soldiers are obliged to protect the hearthstones, the property, the families, the independence and liberty of their native land. At such a time war assumes a character of sanctity and grandeur. The flag, blessed by the ministers of the God of Peace, represents all that is sacred on earth; the people rally to it as the living image of their country and their honor; the warlike virtues are exalted above all others. When the danger is over, the opinion remains, and by a natural reaction of that spirit of vengeance that confounds itself with patriotism, they love to bear the cherished flag from capital to capital. It seems that nature has thus prepared the punishment of the aggressor.The State is also subject to the law of Malthus. It is continually living beyond its means, it increases in proportion to its means, and draws its support solely from the substance of the people. Woe to the people who are incapable of limiting the sphere of action of the State. Liberty, private activity, riches, wellbeing, independence, dignity, depend upon this.

THE BASTIAT COLLECTION

VII.ECONOMIC SOPHISMS—SECOND SERIES

FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

If we now proceed to consider the immediate interest of the consumer, we shall find that it is in perfect harmony with the general interest, with all that the welfare of society calls for. When the purchaser goes to market he desires to find it well stocked. Let the seasons be propitious for all harvests; let inventions, more and more marvellous, bring within reach a greater and greater number of products and enjoyments; let time and labor be saved; let distances be effaced by the perfection and rapidity of transit; let the spirit of justice and of peace allow of a diminished weight of taxation; let barriers of every kind be removed—in all this the interest of the consumer runs parallel with the public interest.The consumer may push his secret wishes to a chimerical and absurd length, without these wishes becoming antagonistic to the public welfare. He may desire that food and shelter, the hearth and the roof, instruction and morality, security and peace, power and health, should be obtained without exertion and without measure, like the dust of the highways, the water of the brook, the air that we breathe; and yet the realization of his desires would not be at variance with the good of society.

THE BASTIAT COLLECTION

FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT 1848

ECONOMIC SOPHISMS—FIRST SERIES

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

You are thus the dupes of an illusion. You wish in the first instance to pay taxes in order that you may have an army, a navy, a church, a university, judges, highways, etc., and then you wish to free from taxation first one branch of industry, then a second, then a third, always throwing back the burden upon the masses. You do nothing more than create interminable complications, without any other result than these complications themselves. Show me that a rise of price caused by protection falls upon the foreigner, and I could discover in your argument something specious.But if it be true that the public pays the tax before your law, and that after the law is passed it pays for protection and the tax into the bargain, truly I cannot see what is gained by it.Finally, have you never asked yourselves whether these heavy burdens on which you found your argument for a prohibitory system are not caused by that very system? If commerce were free, what use would you have for your great standing armies and powerful navies? . . . But this belongs to the domain of politics.

THE BASTIAT COLLECTION

FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT

OUR PRODUCTS ARE

BURDENED WITH TAXES

Good Morning Everyone: Quote of the Day:

Have you ever heard anyone say: “Taxes are the best investment; they are a life-giving dew. See how many families they keep alive, and follow in imagination their indirect effects on industry; they are infinite, as extensive as life itself.”The advantages that government officials enjoy in drawing their salaries are what is seen. The benefits that result for their suppliers are also what is seen. They are right under your nose.But the disadvantage that the taxpayers try to free themselves from is what is not seen, and the distress that results from it for the merchants who supply them is something further that is not seen, although it should stand out plainly enough to be seen intellectually.You compare the nation to a parched piece of land and the tax to a life-giving rain. So be it. But you should also ask yourself where this rain comes from, and whether it is not precisely the tax that draws the moisture from the soil and dries it up.

Frédéric Bastiat, Selected Essays on Political Economy [1848]

A question for those who believe in Government

You know, God's law was not good enough to prevent Adam and Eve from eating the apple. Why do humans feel as though evil human beings will abide by their or man's law? This question is for Democrats in general and the faux Republican/conservative/libertarian.

Eric R. Mcpherson

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