Libertarians From The United States

"When the individual says he has a valid title to life, he means that all that is he, is his own; his body, his mind, his faculties. Maybe there is something else to life, such as a soul, but without going into that realm, he is willing to settle on what he knows about himself—his consciousness."

"Income taxation appeals to the governing class because in its everlasting urgency for power it needs money. Income taxation appeals to the mass of people because it gives expression to their envy; it salves their sense of hurt. The only beneficiaries of income taxation are the politicians, for it not only gives them the means by which they can increase their emoluments but it also enables them to improve their importance. The have-nots who support the politicians in the demand for income taxation do so only because they hate the haves; although they delude themselves with the thought that they might get some of the pelt the fact is that the taxing of incomes cannot in any way improve their economic condition. So that, the sum of all the arguments for income taxation comes to political ambition and the sin of covetousness."

"A politicalized monopoly, however, is absolute. Every competitive influence is removed by force. Even abstinence on the part of the public is no threat, since every drop in revenue can be offset by a tax levy. The power of taxation removes the necessity of rendering service."

"Income and inheritance taxes imply the denial of private property, and in that are different in principle from all other taxes. The government says to the citizen: "Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide."

"It is interesting to note that in nearly all the economics courses it is taught that the income tax is the proper instrument for the regulation of the country’s economy; that private property is not an inalienable right (in fact, there are no inalienable rights); that the economic ills of the country are traceable to the remnants of free enterprise; that the economy of the nation can be sound only when the government manages prices, controls wages, and regulates operations. This was not taught in the colleges before 1913."

"Compulsion means force; there must be a policeman to see that the individual does not follow his own inclinations. But policemen must live. Since they do not produce a thing by which they can live, others must support them. Hence, the planners must have the means of getting at the production of the very people who are to be improved by the policeman. That means taxes, and the more taxes the greater the number of enforcement agents, and therefore the more comprehensive the plan. No plan can be bigger than its bureaucracy. The income tax is the ideal instrument for the planner."

"The income tax completely destroys the immunity of property. It flatly declares a prior right of the State to all things produced. What it permits the individual to retain is a concession to expediency, not by any means a right; for the State retains the liberty to set rates and to fix exemptions from year to year, as its convenience dictates. Thus, the sacred right of private property is violated, and the fact that it is done pro forma makes the violation no less real than when it is done arbitrarily by an autocrat."

"That is the central idea of our current tradition. It is the idealization of the mass and the negation of the individual; its panacea, its method of realization, is political direction; its goal, as always, is the undefined Good Society… The aim of pedagogy today is not to prepare the individual for his own enjoyment of life, but to enable him to better serve the mass machine; the psychologist makes adjustment to mass-thought the measure of healthy thinking and living; jurisprudence puts social responsibility ahead of individual responsibility; the concern of the scientist in the discovery of principles is secondary to his preoccupation with mass production; the economist studies institutions, not people; and philosophy rejects speculation as to the nature of man or the purpose of life as effort that might better be put to the practical problems of society. Ours is the culture of ‘the all,’ rather than ‘the one.’"

"The right to own is the mark of a free man. The slave is a slave simply because he is denied that right. And because the free man is secure in the possession and enjoyment of what he produces, and the slave is not, the spur to production is in one and not in the other."

"For, it must be kept in mind that individualism is the modern radicalism. In the true sense of the word, individualism is always radical, for it rests its case on root ideas; I delves into the nature of things for basic causes; it rejects the idea that man is best served by a series of expedients."

"Communism, they will admit, is Socialism gone hog-wild, but they do not seem capable of recognizing this as an inevitable consequence. Their hatred of Communism does not make them individualists. This is not to question the sincerity of those who have hit the sawdust trail. Far from it. The individualist, who accepts as basic the right of every man to make a fool of himself—provided he does not infringe the equal rights of others—is quick to accept the repentance at face value. But, repentance is not conversion; there is reason to believe that conversion is impossible."

"No sooner do men settle down to a given set of ideas, a pat-tern of living and of thinking, than fault-finding begins, and fault-finding is the tap-root of revolutions."

"The most irritating thing about Jehovah was His insistence on principles. He would have no truck with expediency, was constantly bringing up long-run consequences, and scolded unmercifully when a fellow gave way to some momentary inclination of the flesh. He enjoined you to keep your eyes off the neighbor's wife and property, gave you no peace when you indulged your appetite for homicide, perjury or adultery."

"The ultimate of taxation-for-social-purposes is absolutism, not only because the growing fiscal power carries an equal increase in political power, but because the investment of revenue in the individual by the State gives it a pecuniary interest in him. If the State supplies him with all his needs and keeps him in health and a degree of comfort, it must account him a valuable asset, a piece of capital. Any claim to individual rights is liquidated by society's cash investment. The State undertakes to protect society's investment, as to reimbursement and profit, by way of taxation. The motor power lodged in the individual must be put to the best use so that the yield will further social ends, as foreseen by the management. Thus, the fiscal scheme which begins with distribution is forced by the logic of events into control of production. And the concept of natural rights is inconsistent with the social obligation of the individual. He lives for the State which nurtured him. He belongs to the State by right of purchase."

"Taxation is nothing but organized robbery, and there the subject should be dropped."

"When the privacy of property is denied the privacy of conscience cannot be tolerated. Ideals which do not conform with the prescribed "social good" are obviously a threat to it and must be obliterated."

"The purpose of teaching individualism, then, is not to make individualists but to find them. Rather, to help them find themselves. If a student takes readily to such values as the primacy of the individual, the free market place, or the immorality of taxation, he is an individualist; if he swallows hard, he must be counted a recruit for the other side."

"Popular suffrage is in itself no guarantee of freedom. People can vote themselves into slavery."

"There cannot be a good tax nor a just one; every tax rests its case on compulsion."

"Private Capitalism makes a steam engine; State Capitalism makes pyramids.""

"The last chapter modeled technological progress as an increase in the number of types of products, N. In this chapter, we allow for improvements in the quality or productivity of each type. This approach has come to be known as the Schumpeterian approach to endogenous growth. We can think of increases in N as basic innovations that amount to dramatically new kinds of goods or methods of production. In contrast, increases in the quality of the existing products involve a continuing series of improvements and refinements of goods and techniques."

"It is commonly agreed that Keynes came up with the idea that public works are the best way to help the economy during a recession. As a result, Keynesian economists seem to have developed a blind faith in the government in general, and in the system of public works in particular. I do not share the same faith in the government. I do not share the same faith in public works.And this may help explain why."

"In a December 2006 post on the Dark Cavern web site, the couple advertised for a male partner who “must be 22-40, lean, muscular and hung like a horse.” The ad, which included Stone’s Hotmail address, offered a graphic description of Nydia’s body"

"Stone is a thug who relishes personal insults, character assassination, and offensive Gestapo-like tactics that should be unequivocally dismissed by civil society, most especially those who might give him a platform from which to spew his hatred... He is the David Duke of politics. Those with whom he is affiliated should denounce him in no uncertain terms."

"Republican operative Roger Stone, who says he is no longer working for Donald Trump... is launching a super PAC to attack leading rivals, particularly Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. ...Mr. Trump has been an outspoken critic of super PACs... Mr. Stone makes a number of accusations against Mr. Trump’s opponents and suggests that Mr. Rubio and rival John Kasich are secretly conspiring... Mr. Trump’s campaign paid Mr. Stone’s firm, Drake Ventures, $20,000 earlier this year... but Mr. Stone says they parted ways over the summer."

"Roger Stone has been Donald Trump's chief political advisor. He planned and ran his presidential campaign, and he's been his hatchet man. He spent forty years as a hatchet man. But not only that, the head of the ', a guy named , is good friends with Donald Trump. ...You know the National Enquirer in its history has never endorsed a candidate, until Donald Trump. ...Donald Trump suggested that David Pecker... should take over Time magazine. Who in their right mind..."

"I asked longtime Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone, who is working on the unofficial "Donald Trump" effort... why Trump would embrace discredited theories about Obama's birth. Stone emails... five reasons: "...4) Personally, I think it is brilliant. It's base building. It gives voice to a concern shared by many on the right. ..." ...[A]n official copy of Obama's birth certificate—the same thing Trump would have to prove his own birth—has been available online for three years."

"Stone served as a senior consultant to Bob Dole’s 1996 campaign for President, but that assignment ended in a characteristic conflagration. The National Enquirer, in a story headlined "Top Dole Aide Caught in Group-Sex Ring," reported that the Stones had apparently run personal ads in a magazine called Local Swing Fever. ...Stone claimed that he had been set up by a "very sick individual," but he was forced to resign from Dole’s campaign. Stone acknowledged to me that the ads were authentic. "...the reason I gave a blanket denial was that my grandparents were still alive," he said. "I’m not guilty of hypocrisy. I’m a libertarian and a libertine.""

"One problem for reporters relying on Stone for information? He happens to be among the least trustworthy political players. .. Stone has so effectively burnished his reputation for sinister, win-at-all-cost black bag ops that it seems remarkable it has taken so long for him to be at the center of an FBI investigation, suspected of helping the Russians meddle in the presidential election."

"What made Stone stand out in that tawdry scene was his utter shamelessness. He bragged about being a 19-year-old bit player in the Watergate scandal and about his friendship with , Joe McCarthy’s notorious henchman. Along with his partners, among them Trump adviser Paul Manafort, he engaged in campaign tactics no one else would admit to and took lobbying clients no one else would represent, including murderous foreign dictators. ...Stone was less power player than con artist. ...[H]e was mostly shaking down his clients, who paid him a lot of money based on the largely false impression that he had real influence. He was a bluffer... and a leaker, ratting out his allies in pursuit of his own agenda. ..He would emerge every so often at the center of some bizarre gambit or scandal... publishing preposterous conspiracy books... giving interviews in Miami sex clubs, he was the definition of a marginal political figure. .. For many years, Stone was a lobbyist for Trump’s casino business. He was also the perennial leader of the “Draft Trump” campaign—the person who encouraged Trump’s birther obsession and finally got Trump to run this year. ...[H]e remains a Trump surrogate and dirt-dealer, most recently smearing Khizr Khan as a terrorist and predicting a “bloodbath” if the Democrats try to “steal” the election. Thirty years ago, I called him the state-of-the-art political sleazeball. And I’ve got to hand it to him—in the years since, no one has come close..."

"Roger is a stone-cold loser... He always tries taking credit for things he never did."

"Like Nixon, Stone is... a great hater—of, among others, the Clintons, Karl Rove, and Spitzer."

"Roger was a fringe player around town. He always had this reputation of being a guy who exaggerated things, who pretended he did things. Roger was never on Nixon’s staff, was never on the White House staff. I don’t think you’ll find anyone in the business who trusts him. Roger was always a little rat."

"[E]arly on I saw myself as living in kind of a bridge between two cultures, the white working class and the white upper class."

"Top Five Firms Receiving the Most Money from the Torturers' Lobby, 1991-1992... Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly) $3.3 [Fees, in Millions from] Nigeria, Kenya, [headed by ], Philippines."

"Pat Buchanan... seized control of the most successful third party in half a century... Once Buchanan became the party's presidential nominee, he mysteriously disappeared... The saga begins with a baby, allegedly born more than four decades ago... Roger Stone was using... a scandal to undermine Buchanan. Stone, who also spearheaded the pro-Bush mob shutdown of the Miami/Dade recount in 2000... pushed [the illegitimate baby scandal] aggressively on reporters early in the 2000 campaign, then just let it hover over Buchanan... The trail starts in June 1999... "it was Roger’s brilliant idea," recalls Nofziger, "that Pat ought to leave the party and become the candidate of the Reform Party." ...The master of convoluted chaos, double agent Stone has left his mark in the dark alleys of presidential politics since Watergate, but the sacking of the Reform Party may be his lasting legacy."

"Kenya and Nigeria have widely criticized human rights records. Last year, Kenya received $38 million in U.S. foreign aid, and spent over $1.4 million on Washington lobbyists to get it. Nigeria received $8.3 million and expended in excess of $2.5 million. Whom did both countries call upon to do their bidding before the U.S. government? The lobbying firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly Public Affairs Co.. which received $660,000 from Kenya in 1992-1993 and $1 million from Nigeria in 1991."

"He was able to use the Democratic teachings on voter turnout and class warfare and turn it against us... He knew what populism was in reverse. He thought like a Democrat and dressed like a plutocrat. He once said to me, "Are you black? Are you Hispanic? Are you gay?" When I said no, he said, "Then why the f— are you a Democrat? You should be with us.""

"Stone likes to think of himself as a fixer -- "the next generation's ," in the words of one friend -- and identifies with the modern consultant-as-slick-salesman..."

"He has nicknames within the Republican party: "The Godfather," "The Prince of Darkness." The latter is a name Stone himself likes to repeat. It is, he has told more than one friend, good for his "aura.""

"The partners have been criticized by some fellow consultants for their brand of influence-peddling: first electing clients to office, then lobbying them. The political arm of the organization, formerly Black, Manafort, Stone & Atwater, is now known as Campaign Consultants Inc. ...Corporate clients are willing to pay six-figure fees to ensure the kind of access to top government officials Stone and his partners... like to flaunt."

"You can parlay your short-term connections into making money, but administrations change. That's where Roger is going to end up short, because he doesn't have any real talent. He doesn't have any character. That's why questions have come up about his ethics and his way of doing business. He has to parlay connections to give himself credibility because he has no credibility on his own."

"He was just nineteen when he played a bit part in the Watergate scandals. He adopted the pseudonym Jason Rainier and made contributions in the name of the to the campaign of Pete McCloskey, who was challenging Nixon for the Republican nomination in 1972. Stone then sent a receipt to the Manchester Union Leader, to “prove” that Nixon’s adversary was a left-wing stooge."

"He is... the wicked seed who has poisoned the tree of democracy."

"He's one of the great all-time frauds of American politics... His reputation vastly exceeds his ability. ...His personal effects... rival those of Imelda Marcos. ...In my view, the man's word is no good... Every meeting I've had with the guy, I wanted to wash my hands three times afterwards."

"Political trickster Roger Stone who... was involved in tricks such as the "Brooks Brothers Riot," in which he led pro-Bush protestors, disarmingly dressed in suits and ties, loudly claiming the Miami-Dade County election board, which stopped the recount, when the 2000 Bush vs. Gore election outcome was uncertain. Stone has a number of rules: "Lay low, play dumb, keep moving... Nothing is on the level. ...Hate is a stronger motivator than love. ...Use a cut-out [a front-man stand-in so the prominent candidate doesn't have to do the dirty work]." The results... are toxic to the democratic process. Exploiting fears and stirring prejudices are tricks used by those whose ideas lack intrinsic strength to prevail. ...Winning a hand of poker is not on the same scale as winning an election by acts that destroy people's faith in their nation's entire political system's integrity. The trick of putting a man lacking depth perception in the driver's seat of a great nation is bound to have serious consequences."

"Corey is now openly telling people he's got the goods on me. ...He's telling reporters that he has something on Manafort that will blow him out of the campaign. ...We gotta take the little prick out."

"I’m an agent provocateur."

"Stone’s partner Lee Atwater recently told the Washington Post that [Stone] studies the ' every week, since it’s the literary staple of America’s swing voter. All this "expertise" amounts essentially to a respectable veneer for what Stone and his firm really offer: connections, hype, and hardball negative campaigning."

"Yeah, I live a pretty Machiavellian life, and I'm a sceptic. I tend to believe the worst of people because I understand human nature. Human nature has never changed. That's why one of Stone's rules is that hate is a stronger motivator than love."