Liberty Quote Of The Day: Rand Paul

We've Come To Take Our Government Back.

"Do we believe in the individual or believe in The State? Thomas Jefferson wrote the government is best that governs least. Likewise, freedom is best when enjoyed by the most. America can rise up and surmount these problems if we just get government out of our way."

-Rand Paul - 11/2/2010 U.S. Senate Acceptance Speech from Kentucky

Amen.

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Jens O. Parsson

Jens Parsson discusses how the persistent debasement of money kills society in his 1974 book "Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations". The below quote is reminiscent of Murray Rothbard's description of the early "fun" portions of an inflation as a "heady wine" (click here for Rothbard's in-depth essay on German hyper inflation).

In any case, Parsson makes the point that monetary inflation always ends in a trail of tears, because it is addictive and requires an increasing volume of inflated money in order to keep the party going. As soon as the spigot is turned off, pain comes, so the spigot is never turned off. In fact, it is provides a constantly accelerating flow and ultimately either tragically deluges society in an out of control hyperinflation or, if discipline is somehow re-instituted, ends in a painful deflationary liquidation. Read on for Parsson's quote:

"Everyone loves an early inflation. The effects at the beginning of inflation are all good. There is steepened money expansion, rising government spending, increased government budget deficits, booming stock markets, and spectacular general prosperity, all in the midst of temporarily stable prices. Everyone benefits, and no one pays. That is the early part of the cycle. In the later inflation, on the other hand, the effects are all bad. The government may steadily increase the money inflation in order to stave off the latter effects, but the latter effects patiently wait. In the terminal inflation, there is faltering prosperity, tightness of money, falling stock markets, rising taxes, still larger government deficits, and still roaring money expansion, now accompanied by soaring prices and an ineffectiveness of all traditional remedies. Everyone pays and no one benefits. That is the full cycle of every inflation."

- Jens O. Parsson, Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations (1974)

[HT: LB]

Liberty Quote Of The Day: George Bernard Shaw

We instantly fell in love with this quote, when we heard it released from the lips of Margaret Thatcher, although it originates from George Bernard Shaw. It is so true. Enjoy the bonus Thatcher video below.

"Freedom incurs responsibility; that is why so many men fear it."

- George Bernard Shaw

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Booker T. Washington

As we sit watching the great freedom that our forefathers granted to us melting at the hands of huge oppressive government, an administration that believes it is all knowing, sovereign debt loads spiraling upward, and a Federal Reserve that has manipulated price signals to disasterous outcomes, it is pleasant to think back on what it must have been like to have the chains of slavery fall to your feet and to take your first few free steps.

Booker T. Washington reflects back on that moment - when the Emancipation Proclamation was first read to him. While we're not big fans of Abe Lincoln in many ways, obviously ending slavery was a true moral good.

"As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom.... Some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see."

- Booker T. Washington - Up From Slavery: An Autobiography

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Anonymous

As Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital recently said, "the fear of loss is to capitalism as fear of hell is to Catholicism." TILB couldn't agree more and today we deliver the below quote to you:

We live in a world where our politicians have forgotten what religion has taught us: that without the real possibility and perception of both "good" and "bad" outcomes, you end up with only bad outcomes.

- Anonymous

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Frederich Hayek

Amongst the collection of brilliant attendees of Mises's weekly seminars back in Vienna, Frederich Hayek would distinguish himself as first amongst equals when he later won a Nobel Prize for building on Mises's groundbreaking work in developing an understanding of the impact of credit creation in business cycles.

Hayek was a proponent of liberty and understood that the government could not solve man's inherent problems (they are inherent) and that in its efforts to do good, it would generally have a multiplier of negative unintended consequences. This is Hayek's second Liberty Quote of the Day.

"What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves."

- Frederich August Hayek - The Road to Serfdom: 1944

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Ludwig von Mises

As TILB followers know, Mises is an unrivaled genius in understanding economic consequences and human behavior. We proudly display at the top of our website his "tu ne cede malis" quote as an ironclad motto of standing against the Wormwoods that populate our government.

As we collectively celebrate the wonders of money printing and the socialism of losses, TILB can't help but reflect back on this quote from Mises's great work Human Action. If it doesn't give you a warm fuzzy about Helicopter Ben, nothing will.

"There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

- Ludwig von Mises

From somewhere, far in the distance, beyond the rising fog and across the seas, the wind carried on its back a faintly whispered word, audible only to the ears of the awake: "gold".

[HT: TD]

Liberty Quote Of The Day: James Madison

Our fourth president was an author of the famed Federalist Papers. He also was the primary author of the Constitution. He carved out a defined role for the federal government while leaving broad discretion for each state to create its own constitution for the many and undefined responsibilities of that state's governments. Despite writing a document that put strong restrictions on the role of central government, the scope of that government has done nothing but expand over that time such that now, 233 years later, we sit looking at the Dr. Frankenstein version of what was originally intended.

TILB cannot help but be pained by this evil.

From the Federalist Papers.

"The powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as, war peace negotiation and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties on the people".

- James Madison

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Justice Stephen J. Field - Part II

Yesterday we mentioned that 19th century supreme court Justice Stephen Field has become one of our new monetary heroes. To partly explain why we'd elevated him to such a status, we provided you with Part I in our two part series on Field's dissents during decisions from the Supreme Court that helped legitimize non-asset backed paper currency within the United States. Today, we bring you Part II. This is a collection of statements from Field's dissent in Knox v. Lee, which overturned Hepburn v. Griswold and upheld Lincoln's efforts to debase the money (in fact, Field refused to refer to paper currency as itself "money" and instead only referred to the assets (i.e. gold) that should back a currency as money).

"The statesmen who framed the Constitution ... had seen in the experience of the Revolutionary period the demoralizing tendency, the cruel injustice, and the intolerable oppression of a paper currency not convertible on demand into money, and forced into circulation by legal tender provisions and penal enactments.
...
"There are unchangeable principles of right and morality, without which society would be impossible, and men would be but wild beasts preying upon each other, so there are fundamental principles of eternal justice, upon the existence of which all constitutional government is founded, and without which government would be an intolerable and hateful tyranny.
...
"Whenever the fulfillment of the obligation in the manner stipulated is refused, and acceptance of something different from that stipulated is enforced against the will of the creditor, a breach of faith is committed; and to the extent of the difference of the value between the thing stipulated and the thing which the creditor is compelled to receive, there is repudiation of the original obligation. I am not willing to admit that the Constitution, the boast and glory of our country, would sanction or permit any such legislation. Repudiation in any form, or to any extent, would be dishonor, and for the commission of this public crime no warrant, in my judgment, can ever be found in that instrument."

- Justice Stephen J. Field

The man brings it hot and heavy. It's hard to argue with logic though.

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Justice Stephen J. Field - Part I

This is the first of two quotes we will provide from one of our new monetary heros, Justice Stephen J. Field of the late 19th century U.S. Supreme Court. Tomorrow, we'll give you Part II.

Today in Part I, we provide Justice Field's concluding statement from his dissenting opinion in Juilliard v. Greenman, 110 U.S. 470 (1884), which affirmed the constitutionality of Congress issuing paper money not backed by gold or other stores of value. Justice Field showed a strong Constrained Vision and remarkable long term prescience. The quote speaks for itself.

“From the decision of the Court I see only evil likely to follow. There have been times within the memory of all of us when the legal tender notes of the United States were not exchangeable for more than one-half of their nominal value. The possibility of such depreciation will always attend paper money. This inborn infirmity no mere legislative declaration can cure. If Congress has the power to make the notes a legal tender and to pass as money or its equivalent, why should not a sufficient amount be issued to pay the bonds of the United States as they mature? Why pay interest on the millions of dollars of bonds due now when Congress can in one day make the money to pay the principal? And why should there be any restraint upon unlimited appropriations by the government for all imaginary schemes of public improvement if the printing press can furnish the money that is needed for them?”

- Justice Stephen J. Field

Turn the printing presses on Uncle Ben. There's nobody to stand in your way.

HT: MAK

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Immanuel Kant

In his "Metaphysics of Morals", published in 1784, Kant discussed the singular right with which all men are endowed upon birth: freedom. It is this right which gives us equality, but from that single right nature demands we develop differently from that point forward, seeking out Kant's famous "ends."

The first sentence of the quote is the most famous portion.

"Freedom is independence of the compulsory will of another; and in so far as it can coexist with the freedom of all according to a universal law, it is the one sole original, inborn right belonging to every man in virtue of his humanity. There is, indeed, an innate equality belonging to every man which consists in his right to be independent of being bound by others to anything more than that to which he may also reciprocally bind them. It is, consequently, the inborn quality of every man in virtue of which he ought to be his own master by right (sui juris). There is, also, the natural quality of justness attributable to a man as naturally of unimpeachable right (justi), because be has done no wrong to any one prior to his own juridical actions. And, further, there is also the innate right of common action on the part of every man, so that he may do towards others what does not infringe their rights or take away anything that is theirs unless they are willing to appropriate it; such merely to communicate thought, to narrate anything, or to promise something whether truly and honestly, or untruly and dishonestly (veriloquim aut falsiloquim), for it rests entirely upon these others whether they will believe or trust in it or not. But all these rights or titles are already included in the principle of innate freedom, and are not really distinguished from it, even as dividing members under a higher species of right."

-Immanuel Kant

Liberty Quote Of The Day: John Adams

Second president of the United States and revolutionary heartbeat, John Adams, was a prolific writer and constant thinker. He understood the dangers of too much power and sought to limit it within our government, a lesson forgotten by most of today's public "servants".

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."

- John Adams

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Ron Paul

Avowed protector of Liberty, Congressman Ron Paul tells us what freedom really means. Folks less familiar with Texas's great Dr. No should realize that when Ron Paul talks about robbing our neighbors, he means it both literally and figuratively. For those that follow our Liberty Quote of the Day series, you understand that in most modern forms, taxes, monetary inflation (money printing), and governmental borrowing are the primary forms of the figurative theft he (and we) refer to (see our recent Cliff Asness or Francisco D'Anconia quotes, for instance).

"The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free."

— Ron Paul

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Andrew Jackson

The American Lion, President Andrew Jackson, provided us with a glimpse of what Congress was like in the early part of the 19th century. By way of preview, it already had reached a state of moral decrepitness from which it has never recovered. Arguably it today plumbs the depths of its all time lows.

I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.

- Andrew Jackson

If reading that does not instantly bring to the front of mind thoughts of Pelosi and Frank, you have not been paying attention.

As a bonus on this Two-for Tuesday (we hate that radio-line), we provide you with an additional Jackson quote:

"I have always been afraid of banks."

- Andrew Jackson

Concisely stated, Mr. President. We agree.

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Cliff Asness

Cliff Asness is known for his role as the founder and intellectual leader of investment firm, AQR Capital. His below quote is directed at The Obama Administration's efforts to nationalize healthcare and establish the provision of health care services as a right.

From TILB's mouth to Asness's fingers:

"Listing rights generally involves enumerating things you may do without interference (the right to free speech) or may not be done to you without your permission (illegal search and seizure, loud boy-band music in public places). They are protections, not gifts of material goods. Material goods and services must be taken from others, or provided by their labor, so if you believe you have an absolute right to them, and others don't choose to provide it to you, you then have a 'right' to steal from them. But what about their far more fundamental right not to be robbed?"

- Cliff Asness

Amen.

We add below this video clip which neatly summarizes our view of The Administration's efforts on so many fronts:



Don't fight it. Simply hand your (formerly) free will over to The Administration and their collection of czars. Why think for yourself when silver tongued aggressors are willing to think for you?

Ah, sweet sweet mindless freedom...

[HT: LB]

Liberty Quote Of The Day: The First Amendment

Our ongoing series in quotes on liberty, freedom, and personal responsibility is going to occasionally remind us of the rights we are granted simply by waking up as citizens of these United States. The Bill of Rights (or the first ten amendments to the Constitution) were first authored by James Madison. Today, we begin with the First Amendment which guarantees no laws establishing a national religion, no restrictions on your exercise of religion, and no laws restricting your speech (including via a free press and the right to peaceably assemble):

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

-First Amendment of The U.S. Constitution

Liberty Quote Of The Day Friederich Hayek

Brilliant economist of the Austrian school, Friedrich Hayek, gave us the below quote which is very much along the lines of an earlier TILB posting about Equality of Outcomes vs. Equality of Choice.

“From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time.”

- Friedrich August Hayek

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cicero was a great Roman philosopher and statesman. His simple quote below on the value of freedom rings as true today as when he put pen to paper over two thousand years ago.

Cicero's views on freedom were forged from a remarkable and unlikely life lived in the crosshairs of history. After a variety of hurdles including an exile that caused Cicero to reflect on freedom lost, Cicero stood bravely behind his conviction in opposition to Julius Caesar's dictatorship and in favor of a true republic. While not part of the conspiracy that led to Caesar's assassination at the hands of Brutus, allegedly Brutus called out for Cicero to restore the Republic even as he withdrew the bloodied knife from Caesar's body.

The power vacuum created by Caesar's murder was filled by the competing efforts of Cicero and Caesar's loyal servant Mark Antony. Cicero fought Antony with a barrage of words in his attempt to re-establish the Republic. After losing a power struggle, Cicero sought to escape the Empire before being captured, decapitated and de-handed (if that's a word). Antony nailed his head and hands to the speaker's podium of the Roman Forum (yes, you read that correctly). Wikipedia states that Antony's wife removed Cicero's tongue and "jabbed it repeatedly with her hairpin in final revenge against Cicero's power of speech."

Having processed the above, TILB dares not take its own freedom for granted. As Cicero noted:

"Freedom is a possession of inestimable value."

- Cicero

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Dr. Adrian Rogers

Dr. Rogers' most famous quote (at least that we are aware of) is that which follows. He spent much of his life in ministry and understood closely the nature of poverty and the nature of charity vs. confiscation. His statement below resonates with TILB:

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiple wealth by dividing it."

- Dr. Adrian Rogers

[Hat tip: LB]

Liberty Quote Of The Day: C.S. Lewis

While most famous for his The Chronicles of Narnia series, C.S. Lewis was a brilliant Oxford professor, writer and philosopher as well as a prominent Christian. The following quote which presages the concept of the Nanny State and the Obama Doctrine comes from Lewis's work God in the Dock.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."

- C.S. Lewis