Articles by PJ

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. – Nathan Hale, before being hanged by the British, September 22, 1776 I love my country, not my government. – Jesse Ventura

The times that tried men’s souls are over-and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished. – Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 13, 1783 The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another. – Milton Friedman

Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular. – Thomas Jefferson, letter to Hugh White, May 2, 1801 Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government. – Milton Friedman

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government. – Milton Friedman But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States. – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 32, January 3, 1788

I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual’s natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they’re responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of. – Milton Friedman Eloquence has been defined to be the art of persuasion. If it included persuasion by convincing, Mr. Madison was the most eloquent man I ever heard. – Patrick Henry, on James Madison, November 12, 1790

Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they want a war let it begin here. – Captain John Parker, commander of the militiamen at Lexington, Massachusetts, on siting British Troops (attributed), April 19, 1775 An honorable Peace is and always was my first wish! I can take no delight in the effusion of human Blood; but, if this War should continue, I wish to have the most active part in it. – John Paul Jones, letter to Gouverneur Morris, Sept 2, 1782

But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years. – Thomas Jefferson, September 6, 1789 Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to […]

If Virtue & Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslav’d. This will be their great Security. – Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, February 12, 1779 Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy. – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 69, March 14, 1788

Day by day, case by case, the Supreme Court is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize. – Justice Antonin Scalia All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He […]

The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. – Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776 How many observe Christ’s birth-day! How few, his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments. – Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1743