Free Society Quotes

“Moreover, in the system of criminal punishment in the libertarian world, the emphasis would never be, as it is now, on "society's" jailing the criminal; the emphasis would necessarily be on compelling the criminal to make restitution to the victim of his crime. The present system, in which the victim is not recompensed but instead has to pay taxes to support the incarceration of his own attacker — would be evident nonsense in a world that focuses on the defense of property rights and therefore on the victim of crime.”
― Murray N. Rothbard

“The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this--that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot.”
― Lysander Spooner

“The pygmies, for example, or the Mindoro of the Philippines, do not want equal rights – they just want to be left alone.”
― Paul Karl Feyerabend, Farewell to Reason

“In accordance with the prevailing conceptions in the U.S., there is no infringement on democracy if a few corporations control the information system: in fact, that is the essence of democracy. In the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the leading figure of the public relations industry, Edward Bernays, explains that “the very essence of the democratic process” is “the freedom to persuade and suggest,” what he calls “the engineering of consent.” “A leader,” he continues, “frequently cannot wait for the people to arrive at even general understanding … Democratic leaders must play their part in … engineering … consent to socially constructive goals and values,” applying “scientific principles and tried practices to the task of getting people to support ideas and programs”; and although it remains unsaid, it is evident enough that those who control resources will be in a position to judge what is “socially constructive,” to engineer consent through the media, and to implement policy through the mechanisms of the state. If the freedom to persuade happens to be concentrated in a few hands, we must recognize that such is the nature of a free society.”
― Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies

“Actually, in its essence, democracy is a totalitarian ideology, though not as extreme as Nazism, fascism or communism. In principle, no freedom is safe in a democracy, every aspect of the individual's life is potentially subject to government control. At the end of the day, the minority is completely at the mercy of the whims of the majority. Even if a democracy has a constitution limiting the powers of the government, this constitution too can be amended by the majority. The only fundamental right you have in a democracy, besides running for office, is the right to vote for a political party. With that solitary vote you hand over your independence and your freedom to the will of the majority.”
― Frank Karsten, Beyond Democracy: Why democracy does not lead to solidarity, prosperity and liberty but to social conflict, runaway spending and a tyrannical government

“No rules for the rulers is tyranny for the subjects. Freedom for politicians is enslavement for citizens.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“A steady recognition that the evils which prevent the fullness of moral development are precisely the elements which are also the source of the power that gives existence to whatever moral accomplishments we see about us may eventually lead us to a tolerance we grant to the internal-combustion engine: it is noisy and smelly, and occasionally, it refuses to start, but it is what gets us to wherever we get.
We must somehow learn to understand and so to tolerate- not destroy- the free society.”
― Michael Polanyi, Meaning

“Countries adopting free-market capitalism have increased output 70-fold, halved work days and doubled lifespans.”
― Stefan Molyneux

“The desire for an increase of wealth can be satisfied through exchange, which is the only method possible in a capitalist economy, or by violence and petition as in a militarist society, where the strong acquire by force, the weak by petitioning.”
― Ludwig von Mises

“What you call law is essentially the need of an uncivilized and unfree society. A truly civilized and free society needs no law.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Fabric of Humanity

“The dream of true economic, gender and racial equality in a free society, which was cherished (if not achieved) by Leftists of the post-war generation, died under New Labour; but the egalitarianism at its heart was resurrected by a merciless minority as the brain-sucking zombie of Political Correctness.”
― Mark Crutchfield, The Last Best Gift: Eye Witnesses to the Celebrity Sabbath Massacre

“The American government is premised on the theory that if the individual man is to be free, his ideas, his beliefs, his ideology, his philosophy, must be placed beyond the reach of government.”
― William O. Douglas

“The true purpose of law should not be to maintain order, rather it should be to create a truly lawless society.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Fabric of Humanity

“According to a study published in 2018 in The Atlantic, some 80 percent of Americans have a negative view of PC culture and the dangerous paths and objectives it pursues. No wonder Trump’s anti-PC stance has found an audience. The numbers are similar even among younger Americans: 74 percent for ages twenty-four to twenty-nine, and 79 percent for those under twenty-four.

There is a reason for this. Eighty percent of Americans understand that the cornerstone of a free society is the free exchange of ideas.”
― Gianno Caldwell, Taken for Granted: How Conservatism Can Win Back the Americans That Liberalism Failed

“Τα ανεξάρτητα κράτη και οι ελεύθερες κοινωνίες ποτέ, μα ποτέ, στην ιστορία δεν χτίστηκαν με λόγια και διακηρύξεις. Η ενοποίηση αλλά και η διαμόρφωση των ορίων της νεοαποκτηθείσης ελευθερίας, θα ερχόταν μέσα από δοκιμασία. Μακρόχρονη και πικρή δοκιμασία”
― Γιώργος Μαργαρίτης, 1821: Ενάντια σε φρούρια και τείχη

“A reading society will triumph; a thinking society will triumph; a free society will triumph; an honest society will triumph and what about the rest? There is even no need to mention about them!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“A lack of moral clarity is why an Israeli journalist compared a kipa to a prison. It is why people in free societies cannot distinguish between religious fundamentalists in democratic states and religious terrorists in fundamentalist states. It is why people in free societies can come to see their fellow citizens as their enemies and foreign dictators as their friends.”
― Natan Sharansky, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror