The Iron Web Quotes

“Some of us realize the self-evident truth that no election, no constitution, no legislation, and no other pseudo-religious political ritual can bestow upon anyone the right to rule another. Nothing can make a man into a rightful master; nothing can make a man into a rightful slave.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You are not Christians. You are not Jews. You are not Muslims. And you certainly aren’t atheists. You all have the same god, and its name is ‘government.’ You’re all members of the most evil, insane, destructive cult in history. If there ever was a devil, the state is it. And you worship it with all your heart and soul.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“The bravest thing you’ll ever do is walk into a booth every few years, where no one can see you, and press a button, to say which of two slave-masters you’d rather be owned by.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You call yourselves Christians, or Jews, or claim to follow some other religion, but the truth is, what you call your religion is empty window-dressing. What you truly worship, the god you really bow to, what you really believe in, is the state. ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ ‘Thou shalt not murder.’ Unless you can do it by way of government. Then it’s just fine, isn’t it?”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“What the hell are you proud of? Proud to live in the country with the most intrusive, obnoxious, abusive tax collectors in the world? Proud to live in a country that has a higher percentage of people in prison than any other country in the world? Proud to be ruled by a government that has started and perpetuated more military conflicts in more areas of the world than any other in history? Proud to live in a country where the politicians and bankers have seen to it that you, your children, and your children’s children will forever be their indentured servants, to be forever herded and fleeced like sheep? Proud to live in a country where the biggest slimeballs on the planet tell you what you can eat, what you can drink, what you can drive, what you can build, where you can work, what you can produce, and what you can think?”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“Ayn Rand called it ‘the sanction of the victim.’ If you give the impression to your oppressor that you accept, or even approve of, his oppression of you, things will only get worse. Whatever else happens, never tell someone that you accept that he has the right to rule you. Never. You will make him into a monster, and you will make yourself into a slave.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“If you call it ‘taxation’ and ‘war,’ it stops being a sin, right? After all, it was only your god that said you shouldn’t steal and murder, but the state said it was okay. It’s pretty obvious which one outranks the other in your minds. Despite all the churches, synagogues, and mosques we see around us, this nation has one god, and only one god, and that god is called ‘government’.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“Kids are taught to praise and adore tyrants, and taught to hate any who resist them. We make fun of it when other countries put their own spin on history. We’re stunned that anyone could still think that Josef Stalin or Chairman Mao was a good guy. But this country does the same thing, teaching our kids to adore tyrants like FDR and Lincoln.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“I want to be able to say that what you do is unjustifiable, and that you should be locked up. Because if what you say is true—and I wish I could prove you wrong, but I can’t—then I don’t know what to think. If things are really that bad, if the system is completely corrupt and broken and it’s really time for another American Revolution or something, well, that idea just scares the hell out of me.” She took a deep breath. “I guess what I’m saying is, I wish you didn’t make this much sense, because I’m starting to agree with you, and it’s freaking me out.” She made a feeble attempt to smile.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“But if you’re not allowed to defend your rights, by force if necessary, then they aren’t rights at all. If it’s up to government to decide what rights we have, then we have no rights at all. You might as well ask a carjacker whether you have the right to keep your own car.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“No, you are ignorant because you shun the truth with all your heart and soul. You close your eyes and run away when a hint of reality lands in front of you. You condemn as extremists and fringe kooks those who try to show you the chains you wear, because you don’t want to be free; you don’t even want to be human. Responsibility and reality scare the hell out of you, so you cling tightly to your own enslavement and lash out at any who seek to free you from it. When someone opens the door to your cage, you cower back in the corner and yell, ‘Close it, close it!”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“Throughout history, the perpetual suffering and injustice, occurring on an incomprehensible scale—it was all because of people just like you: the well-trained, thoroughly indoctrinated conformists, the people who do as they’re told, who proudly bow to their masters, who follow the crowd, believing what everyone else believes and thinking whatever authority tells them to think. That is you.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You indoctrinate your children into a life of unthinking, helpless subservience. You are putting the chains around their little necks and fastening the locks tight. And worst of all, you feel good about it.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You proclaim how proud you are to be ‘law-abiding citizens,’ and express utter contempt for anyone who considers himself above your so-called ‘laws,’ laws that are nothing more than the selfish whims of tyrants and thieves.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You have become so thoroughly indoctrinated into the cult of state-worship that you are truly shocked when the occasional sane person states the bleeding obvious: the mere fact that the political crooks wrote something down and declared their threats to be ‘law’ does not mean that any human being anywhere has the slightest moral obligation to obey. Every moment of every day, in every location and every situation, you have a moral obligation to do what you deem to be right, not what some delusional bloated windbag says is ‘legal.’ And that requires you to first determine right and wrong for yourself—a responsibility you spend much time and effort trying to dodge.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“The truth of the matter, back then and today, is that these parasites who call themselves ‘leaders’ are not superior beings, they are not great men and women, they are not honorable, they’re not even average.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You feel pride at being able to say you once shook a senator’s hand, or saw the President in person. Ah, yes, the grand deity himself, His Royal Highness, the President of the United States of America. You speak the title as if you’re referring to God Almighty.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“Everywhere you turn, be it the state or the church, the media or the schools, you are taught one thing above all else: the virtue of subjugating yourselves to mortals who claim to have the right to rule you.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“Jesus taught nonviolence, and told you to love your neighbor, but the state encourages you to vote for people who will use the violence of government to butt into every aspect of everyone else’s life. Which do you believe?”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You proudly support the troops as they kill whomever the liars in D.C. tell them to kill, and you feel good about it.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“The master doesn’t need to whip the obedient slaves, but that doesn’t mean those slaves are free.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“Even the spectacle of having to choose between John McHitler and Barack Ostalin in 2008 wasn’t enough to shake the American people out of their blind faith in the cult of democracy.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“You evade your responsibility as human beings by hallucinating a false god that relieves you of the duty to think for yourselves. You don’t want to be free, because being merely obedient requires so much less thought.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“When July Fourth rolls around, and you’re all swigging your beer and waving your flags, does the fact that we are infinitely less free than we ever were under British rule ever make its way into what’s left of your brains?”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“The great Emancipation Proclamation, which I assume you’ve heard of, only declared slaves free in areas not controlled by the Union. It wasn’t a great victory for freedom; it was a military tactic, one used by lots of tyrants before Lincoln, including King George: tell your enemy’s slaves that if you win, they’ll be free. It’s a fine way to cause havoc on the other side, but it has nothing to do with principles.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“True freedom and self-ownership is the simplest, most self-evident thing in the world. It’s so obvious that people have to be constantly trained to not see it. It’s the belief in authority that depends upon mental gymnastics, ignoring obvious contradictions, and engaging in ridiculously complex and convoluted rationalizations, to try to justify one group of people ruling another.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“If anything should offend a minority, that’s it: a bunch of elitists telling them, ʻYou can’t possibly succeed unless we give you a head start.’ And yet the politicians who say that always get the bulk of the minority vote.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“Trying to clear things up, when people in power are constantly trying to confuse matters, is a tough job. There are so many levels of misunderstanding in most people’s minds, that it’s hard to even know where to begin.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“But his nationalism and pack mentality—and most of all, his unshakable faith in authority—rendered him blind to the evil he was committing. It’s the same with every army, and every cop. Above all else, they take pride in their ability to obey without question, as if it’s a virtue instead of the most heinous sin a person can commit.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“But all ʻlegal’ means is that the government told you to do it. The way people view law these days, whether something is ʻlegal’ or not depends only on who gave the order. If the people who call themselves ʻgovernment’ do it, it’s legal. If anyone else does, it’s not. But whether the order itself is good or evil, and whether anyone should obey it, has nothing to do with who gave the order.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web