Taking Five and Returning Four is not Giving

People are beginning to realize that the apparatus of government is costly. But what they do not know is that the burden falls inevitably on them.

We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property. The existence of persons and property preceded the existence of the legislator, and his function is only to guarantee their safety.

This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it: (1) The few plunder the many. (2) Everybody plunders everybody. (3) Nobody plunders anybody.

Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.