If I had to use a single word to describe what is fundamentally wrong with government today, I would use the word fraud.

It is a sound interpretive rule...that anything that cannot be accomplished except with the aid of threats or the actual exercise of violence against unoffending persons cannot be beneficial to one and all.

Once a bureau is created, its staff becomes a tenacious political interest group, well placed to defend its budget and to make a case for expanding its activities.

Without popular fear, no government would endure more than twenty-four hours.

Inflation is not a benign element in the economy's operation. It is, as it has always been, the most dangerous and destructive form of taxation.

H. L. Mencken famously said that 'every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.' By now, however, I am no longer ashamed, because I do not identify with the government under which I live. Rather, I view it as a criminal organization that without provocation has chosen to make war on my just rights-not only mine, of course, but everyone's. Although this vile enterprise is my problem, because it robs and bullies me relentlessly and without mercy, it is not my responsibility: the nail is not the hammer.

In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy's mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state's mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.