Association of Free Citizens

Oh, yeah.

A few gems from Theo Spark.

“The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. You do not do that. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them!” – Sergeant Alvin York

“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.” – Samuel Adams, in a letter to James Warren, on November 4, 1775

“Never forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn’t let him do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians.” – from the novel Hope by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith

“When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about how much he spends and how he spends it.
When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends it on.
When a man spends someone else’s money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about what he buys, but doesn’t care at all how much he spends.
And when a man spends someone else’s money on someone else, he doesn’t care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that’s government for you.” -Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman

“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” – Mark Twain

“Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized: In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident.” – Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher, 1788-1860)

“Three groups spend other people’s money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision.” – Dick Armey

This excellent essay by Doctor Zero was published over at The Green Room. Many think that Socialism is only one form of government among many, and in theory, the best in the minds of a lot of them. A quaint notion, that, given a century of experimentation that should have disabused any intelligent observer. Here are some choice morsels:

One of the most persistent and dangerous illusions of socialism is the belief that money becomes magically virtuous when government handles it. Politicians are at least as greedy as any captain of industry. The installation of a politburo does not eliminate ambition from a society – it changes the means used to fulfill those ambitions. The political class achieves its desires through force, by definition. Unlike commerce, force produces no side benefits for the larger population – the politician and his constituents get what they want, at the expense of everyone else.

What about the little guy? Doesn’t he benefit under benign socialist control? Of course not. He never has, anywhere on Earth, during the many times collective governments have gained power. The common man might realize some short-term gains when the socialist government marches into power – wow, free health care! It never lasts. It can’t. Socialist control destroys the very mechanisms of prosperity it needs to pay off on its promises.

Socialists despise competition – they find virtue in the idea that everyone deserves everything, and benevolent leaders have a responsibility to provide it. Competition doesn’t disappear under socialist control – that’s another childish fantasy. Instead, socialism replaces competition between individuals with competition between groups. The former is energetic and constructive, while the latter is bitter, and almost inevitably violent. In a total State, the individual has no way to improve his situation, no way to build a better life on his own. Instead, he must join a collective – a group large and powerful enough to influence the government, which dispenses all benefits.

When everything you have is provided by the State, you will easily come to hate anyone whose demands take priority over yours. They are not your competitors. They are your enemies.

Capitalism is indeed a love story, born from the enduring respect of free men for the maturity and liberty of their fellow citizens. It is better to be poor in a capitalist society, than middle-class in any of the miserable “worker’s paradises” that litter the world. Free people working together, and in competition, generate the prosperity that stands as the only medicine against poverty.

In the main, an excellent summation of Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom”, buttressed by sixty years of bitter experience. Go read the whole thing.