James Bovard Quotes

To blindly trust government is to automatically vest it with excessive power. To distrust government is simply to trust humanity - to trust in the ability of average people to peacefully, productively coexist without some official policing their every move. The State is merely another human institution - less creative than Microsoft, less reliable than Federal Express, less responsible than the average farmer husbanding his land, and less prudent than the average citizen spending his own paycheck.

The average American family head will be forced to do twenty years' labor to pay taxes in his or her lifetime.

If so many Americans are looking for the government to save them, then it is hard to have a dignified search for a shepherd in chief.

If an election is simply a one-day snapshot of transient mass delusions, then this is not a very noble form of government.

For the average person walking down a dark street late at night, a promise from a politician is worth far less than a .38 Special.

As soon as people drop the reins on government, government will leash the people.

The sheer number of government employees and welfare recipients effectively transforms the purpose of government from maintaining order to confiscating as much as possible from vulnerable taxpayers.

The more that voting is glorified as a panacea, the more lackadaisical people become about preserving their constitutional rights.

Not only has the number of government employees multiplied in recent decades, but the rise of government unions further stacks the political odds against private citizens.

The Federal Government is exploiting public fear to redefine the relationship between the rulers and the American people.

American democracy is capsizing as a result of the vast increase in the number of government dependents and government employees.

The only things government can do are regulate and redistribute, prohibit and penalize, confiscate and command. Are these the things that liberty is made of? Somebody else's money and an endless list of Thou Shalt Nots?

Governments and citizens blend together only in the imaginations of political theorists. Government is, and always will be, an alien power over private citizens. There is no magic in a ballot box that makes government any less coercive.

Freedom to vote is valuable primarily as a means to safeguard other freedoms.

America needs fewer laws, not more prisons.

There has been so much power concentrated. There is no leash on that power anymore and Americans face the situation that this power is getting momentum with each passing year with each presidency.