Liberty quotes

[thinkliberty]

"We artists are indestructible; even in a prison, or in a concentration camp. I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell." — Pablo Picasso

[Friday]

And here we come to the vital distinction between the advocacy of temperance and the advocacy of prohibition. Temperance and self-control are convertible terms. Prohibition, or that which it implies, is the direct negation of the term self-control. In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, it aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike. And if this is proper in one respect, why not in all respects? Yet, what would one think of a proposition to keep all men locked up because a certain number have a propensity to steal?

— Percy Andreae, "A Glimpse behind the Mask of Prohibition" [1915]

[Friday]

"If government is the answer, it must have been a really stupid question." -- unknown

[Pat K]

In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available... in America right now."
Merle Haggard

[KBCraig]

In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available... in America right now."
Merle Haggard

Dayumm. Bitter truth.

I love The Hagg. Got a reference for that one?

[Pat McCotter]

In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available... in America right now."
Merle Haggard

Dayumm. Bitter truth.

I love The Hagg. Got a reference for that one?

Salon article Page 3

Full quote:
"Look at the past 25 years -- we went downhill, and if people don't realize it, they don't have their fucking eyes on," says Haggard. "In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available to an average citizen in America right now. I mean, there was nobody going to throw you down on the side of the road spread-eagled, and look up your butt for a fucking marijuana cigarette. God almighty, what have we done to each other?"

[Friday]

Do not consider Collectivists as sincere but deluded idealists. The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not idealistic, no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to do good by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.

— Ayn Rand, The Vigil [1946]

[Friday]

For the majority of people liberty means only the system and the administrators they are used to.

— Albert Jay Nock, Selected Letters of Albert Jay Nock [1962]

[Pat K]

Where politicians flourish, long history has harshly taught us, people and their liberty wither. Where the state is god and the "public interest" worshiped, individual man will be found bleeding upon the altar."
Karl Hess

[geoff]

I was looking for the Ghandi qoute about firearms and self defense not bieng immoral/bad.  All I've got so far is this:
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
Mohandas Gandhi
 
Does anyone know if that's it, or is there a more specific one?

[Kat Kanning]

That's the one I've heard.

[geoff]

Ok, that helps.  I work with a woman whose son got in trouble at school for fighting back when someone started a fight with him and I wanted to eloquently convey that I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and that Ghandi himself had conveyed that point.  If that's not on the right track, let me know.

[KBCraig]

Wikiquote sources that one as: Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 446 (Beacon Press paperback edition).

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ghandi

[Friday]

Hoping for a Christmas miracle.....      

The State can protect and promote the interests of its sick, or potentially sick, citizens in one of two ways only: either by coercing physicians, and other medical and paramedical personnel, to serve patients — as State-owned slaves in the last analysis, or by creating economic, moral, and political circumstances favorable to a plentiful supply of competent physicians and effective drugs.

— Thomas Szasz, "The Right to Health" [1969]

[Sovereign Curtis]

"If joy and wonder, and a beautiful, indomitable existence are what we want, we need to try to achieve this here and now in rebellious defiance against all domination, eradicating the logic of submission from our lives, and our relationships and our revolutionary struggle - for the destruction of politics and the creation of life without measure."

- Wolfi Landstreicher, 'Against the Logic of Submission'