All nonstate threats to life, liberty, and property appear to be relatively petty and therefore can be dealt with. Only states can pose truly massive threats, and sooner or later the horrors with which they menace mankind invariably come to pass.

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.

In the transfer society, the general public is not only poorer but also less contented, less autonomous, more rancorous, and more politicized. Individuals take part less often in voluntary community activities and more often in belligerent political contests. Genuine communities cannot breathe in the poisonous atmosphere of redistributional politics.

The beginning of political wisdom is the realization that despite everything you’ve always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed, it is out to get you.

Recipients of transfers set a bad example for others, including their children, other relatives, and friends, who see that one can receive goods, services, or money from the government without earning them. The onlookers easily adopt an attitude that they, too, are entitled to such transfers. They have fewer examples of hardworking, self-reliant people in their families or neighborhoods.

Ironically, in the full-fledged transfer society, where governments busy themselves redistributing income by means of hundreds of distinct programs, hardly anyone is better off as a result.

Intervene globally, lose freedom locally.