Collectivism is the "philosophy" of every cockroach and sewer rat: "If I want it, I must need it, and if I need it, I have a right to it, and if I have a right to it, it doesn't matter what I have to do to get it." Thefact that such an inherently animalistic, short-sighted, anti-humanviewpoint is now painted by some as compassionate and "progressive" does not make it any more sane, or any less dangerous.
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Quotes filed under natural-rights
Man has rights because they are natural rights. They are grounded in the nature of man: the individual's capacity for conscious choice, the necessity for him to use his mind and energy to adopt goals and values, to find out about the world, to pursue his ends in order to survive and prosper, his capacity and need to communicate and interact with other human beings and to participate in the division of labor.
If you are for gun control, then you are not against guns, because the guns will be needed to disarm people. So it__ not that you are anti-gun. You__l need the police__ guns to take away other people__ guns. So you__e very pro-gun; you just believe that only the Government (which is, of course, so reliable, honest, moral and virtuous_) should be allowed to have guns. There is no such thing as gun control. There is only centralizing gun ownership in the hands of a small political elite and their minions.
The story of humanity can be written as the struggle to acknowledge all human beings as human beings.
Why should you desire to compel others; why should you seek to have power_ that evil, bitter, mocking thing, which has been from of old, as it is today, the sorrow and curse of the world__ver your fellow-men and fellow-women? Why should you desire to take from any man or woman their own will and intelligence, their free choice, their own self-guidance, their inalienable rights over themselves; why should you desire to make of them mere tools and instruments for your own advantage and interest; why should you desire to compel them to serve and follow your opinions instead of their own; why should you deny in them the soul__hat suffers so deeply from all constraint__nd treat them as a sheet of blank paper upon which you may write your own will and desires, of whatever kind they may happen to be? Who gave you the right, from where do you pretend to have received it, to degrade other men and women from their own true rank as human beings, taking from them their will, their conscience, and intelligence__n a word, all the best and highest part of their nature__urning them into mere empty worthless shells, mere shadows of the true man and women, mere counters in the game you are mad enough to play, and just because you are more numerous or stronger than they, to treat them as if they belonged not to themselves, but to you? Can you believe that good will ever come by morally and spiritually degrading your fellow-men? What happy and safe and permanent form of society can you hope to build on this pitiful plan of subjecting others, or being yourselves subjected by them?
Accepting necessary conflicts for the sake of improving the lives of children is the only fundamental moral crusade that matters.
The truth is, one who seeks to achieve freedom by petitioning those in power to give it to him has already failed, regardless of the response. To beg for the blessing of __uthority_ is to accept that the choice is the master__ alone to make, which means that the person is already, by definition, a slave.
Resherphire: True freedom is not that which is granted by an oppressor. It is a self-evident right, not something that originates from an external force.
Liberty is not something a government gives you. It is a right that no government can legally take away.
Capitalism is not a form of government. Capitalism is a symptom of freedom. It is the result of individual rights, which include property rights.
The Founders believed, and the Conservative agrees, in the dignity of the individual; that we, as human beings, have a right to live, live freely, and pursue that which motivates us not because man or some government says so, but because these are God-given natural rights.
Statism is political fashion.Individual liberty is eternal.
No one can take away your Natural Rights, but they can do great damage making you think they can.
Harming one__ unalienable rights in order to serve justice is injustice.
A man's natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime; whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, or by millions calling themselves a government.
A libertarian is somebody who believes, of course, in personal liberty. And liberty is a personal thing; it is not collective. You don__ gain liberty because you belong to a group. So we don__ talk about women__ rights or gay rights or anything else. Everybody has an absolute equal right as an individual, and it comes to them naturally.