Give Us Liberty Quotes

“Now, we Americans understand freedom. We have earned it, we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This nation and its people are freedom’s model in a searching world. We can be freedom’s missionaries in a doubting world. But, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew freedom’s mission in our own hearts and in our own homes.”
― Barry Goldwater, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“When Jann Wenner, the hopelessly liberal founder of Rolling Stone magazine, was interviewing Bob Dylan in 2006, he was told that politicians cannot be counted on to solve problems. To him, the statement seemed absurd. “Who is going to solve them?” Wenner asked, incredulous. Dylan replied, “Our own selves2.” He’s exactly right. If we want things”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“Our country, the noblest country in the history of men, was based on the principle of individualism, the principle of man’s “inalienable rights.” It was a country where a man was free to seek his own happiness, to gain and produce; not to give up and renounce; to prosper, not to starve; to achieve, not to plunder; to hold as his highest possession a sense of his personal value, and as his highest virtue his self-respect.”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“The biggest error made by advocates of government planning, from Marx to Keynes to Obama, is the assumption that bureaucrats and elected officials possess both the detailed knowledge and right motives to be able to solve the economic problems of a nation. While microeconomics correctly assumes that individuals act in their own self-interest, every macroeconomic proposal for government intervention implicitly assumes that public officials act in the public interest, somehow suppressing their individual interests to the greater interests of society.”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“We’ve been involved in public policy debates long enough to know that when someone is losing an argument based on the facts, they try to change the subject. Thus liberals’ hysterical reaction to the rising public opposition to their hostile government reboot of the American health care system. Thus Democrats’ hostile attacks on the citizens who overwhelmed congressional town hall meetings over the August recess. It was “un-American.”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“As the Tea Party grew, the Democrats and their allies let their deepest insecurities get the best of them. The public was starting to understand! Accusations of Astroturf quickly gave way to uglier smears against the grassroots citizens who opposed big-government policies.”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“Rahm Emanuel told the Wall Street Journal, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” There was a short window for the new Obama administration, “an opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“Big government is driven by two audacities: (1) the presumption that people are dumb and don’t know what’s good for them, (2) people are corrupt and dishonest; therefore it is incumbent upon the government to take money and spend it on citizens’ behalf. On the other hand, the Tea Party has trust in the practical genius of the American people to be responsible for making decisions.”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“THE SECOND MAJOR THEME running through the Tea Party movement is the call for personal responsibility. The founding documents built institutions that allowed for individuals to chase their dreams and be responsible for their own successes and failures. Tea Partiers value equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes. For us, it is all about the rights of the individual over the collective.”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“Our nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to protecting the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of the individual, not of the collective or groups of special interests. The miracle of the Constitution is the simple genius of limited government and its singular devotion to protecting individual liberty.”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“As a public choice professor, I used to begin class each semester28 with Armey’s Axiom number one: “The market is rational and the government is dumb.” Those quick to call for more regulation forget the power of markets and refuse to acknowledge government culpability in the current mess. Time and again, governments the world over have attempted to outsmart the market and the current legislation is no exception. And time after time, markets respond, toppling the best-laid government plans as they move to correctly price the underlying assets in exchange.”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“A few stalwart fiscal conservatives in Congress also bravely stepped up and stood against the plan to socialize major Wall Street investment banks, led by Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. Pence had come out against the plan early, arguing that “economic freedom means the freedom to succeed26 and the freedom to fail.”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“Winston Churchill would later say10 that the American Constitution was the most profound act of political genius in the history of the world. It’s hard not to view our nation’s founding as a political miracle, but the Sons of Liberty knew better. It was the passionate participation of Americans committed to liberty and willing to show up in its defense that made the theory of individual freedom a political reality. While the founders did everything they could in the Constitution to establish a government that would preserve the rights of individuals,”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“Poor Samuel Adams. He was a pious man who resented the drinking and carousing of the privileged elite in favor with the British Crown in Boston. Today he is the mascot for a beer company. He was a tireless champion of individual liberty who dedicated his life to the battle for American independence. Today his tactics have been hijacked by leftist radicals hell-bent on tearing down the institutions that make our nation special. How did we lose our cultural heritage of grassroots activism to the big-government crowd?”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives

“THE PENDULUM OF POLITICS is always swinging. Republicans gain seats, Democrats win them back, and the struggle continues. The one thing that seems inevitable no matter the party in office is the continued growth of government. Occasionally, however, a fresh jolt of conservative energy interrupts that growth.”
― Dick Armey, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto – Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Grassroots Guide for Fiscal Conservatives