Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.

The American experiment has come and gone. Whatever freedoms the people still might have as their own, are monitored and registered and taxed at virtually every turn.

One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

A power of a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.

Yet new international commodity controls are constantly being proposed.  This time, we are told, they are going to avoid all the old errors.  This time prices are going to be fixed that are "fair" not only for producers but for consumers.  Producing and consuming nations are going to agree on just what these fair prices are, because no one will be unreasonable.  Fixed prices will necessarily involve "just" allotments and allocations for production and consumption as among nations, but only cynics will anticipate any unseemly international disputes regarding these.  Finally, by the greatest miracle of all, this world of superinternational controls and coercions is also going to be a world of "free" international trade!

Just what the government planners mean by free trade in this connection I am not sure, but we can be sure of some of the things they do not mean.  They do not mean the freedom of ordinary people to buy and sell, lend and borrow, at whatever prices or rates they like and wherever they find it most profitable to do so.  They do not mean the freedom of the plain citizen to raise as much of a given crop as he wishes, to come and go at will, to settle where he pleases, to take his capital and other belongings with him.  They mean, I suspect, the freedom of bureaucrats to settle these matters for him.  And they tell him that if he docilely obeys the bureaucrats he will be rewarded by a rise in his living standards.  But if the planners succeed in tying up the idea of international cooperation with the idea of increased State domination and control over economic life, the international controls of the future seem only too likely to follow the pattern of the past, in which case the plain man's living standards will decline with his liberties.

I believe in the United States of America as a Government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseperable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

The danger inherent in reform is that the cure may be worse than the disease…reformers are not on guard against unpredictable side effects which may divert the course of reform toward unwanted results. Moreover, quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.

We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.