Some conservatives are surprised to find people on the Left supporting the war in Afghanistan. It's not surprising at all...It is hard for the government to prosecute a war and not expand...Conservatives may think they can support war and oppose the expansion of the state, but that is like trying to square the circle. What makes them think they can contain the expansion?

Government interference with the economic process represents a substitution of political for consumer objectives.

Freedom is never more in peril than when politicians feel the pressure to 'do something.'

No matter how much the government controls the economic system, any problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of freedom that remains.

Wealth comes from the production and exchange of goods and services. If someone efficiently produces a good that many people willingly trade their money for, he becomes wealthy.

We think of prices as simply the notation of how much we must pay for things. But the price system accomplishes far more than that. Hundreds of millions of people buying and selling, and abstaining from buying and selling, generate a system of signals - prices to producers and consumers about relative scarcities and demand. Through this system, consumers can convey to producers their subjective priorities and entrepreneurs can invest accordingly.

The government's coercive taxing power necessarily creates two classes: those who create and those who consume the wealth expropriated and transferred by that power.