Transfer payments discourage the recipients from earning income in the present and from investing in their potential to earn income in the future. People respond to a reduced cost of idleness by choosing to be idle more often.

Intervene globally, lose freedom locally.

Who can dispute that the governments of the United States constitute the most voracious tax system in the history of mankind? In the year 2000, those governments succeeded in laying hands on more than $3 trillion - almost $11,000 each for the 275 million men, women, and children resident in the country. No other nation-state rakes in an amount even close to the U.S. total.

True counselors of despair are those who hope against hope—and historical experience—that the government can and will act constructively.

Many anti-energy groups display little appreciation of the extent to which modern economies depend pervasively on the use of fossil fuels and petrochemical products.

Abetted by misguided or co-opted intellectuals, the rulers weave a cloak of legitimacy to disguise their theft and hence to ease their extraction of wealth from the rightful owners.

In U.S. history, war has served as an important diversionary tactic, causing the people at large to shift their attention away from the state's own criminality and toward real or fictitious devils abroad. Wars have therefore proved to be extremely useful in propping up the political class and preserving it from the public resistance and rebellion that might otherwise have arisen.