Philosophy

• "Fascism, Nazism, Communism, and Socialism are only superficial variations of the same monstrous theme: Collectivism.” ―Ayn Rand

• "Socialists consider themselves very generous with other people's money."

• "Reminder: no law prevents socialists from pooling their money together to fund all their good ideas.” ―Sal the Agorist

• "For all the programs that socialist/leftists want the government to pay for (really us), there should be "Federal Go Fund Me" plans instead. That way all those who want to fund their pet projects could do so, but leave the rest of us alone. Taxes (forced payments) should only be used for the absolute minimum required for the government to function.” ―Michael

• “Congress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay.” ―Milton Friedman

• “One thing is clear: the Founding Fathers never intended a nation where citizens would pay nearly half of everything they earn to the government.” ―Ron Paul

• “Inflation; That’s the price we pay for those government benefits everybody thought were free.” ―Ronald Reagan

• “I'm upset that my parents never got rich enough for me to become a socialist.” ―Lou Perez

• “Socialism is the suicide pact of mediocrity.” ―Naval

• “Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.” ―Ronald Reagan

• “Dear IRS, I am writing to you to cancel my subscription. Please remove my name from your mailing list.” ―Snoopy

• “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” ―Thomas Jefferson

• “Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?” ―Thomas Sowell

• “Why do people think that if the government just had more money, all of our problems would be fixed?”

• “There is nothing government can give you that hasn’t been taken from you in the first place.” ―Winston Churchill

• “Free speech does not mean your opinions are immune to criticism - quite the opposite, in fact.”

• “You cannot tax your way to prosperity any more than you can drink your way to sobriety.”

• “The people who start the wars don’t fight them, the people who spend the taxes don’t pay them, and the people who forgive the criminals don’t live next to them. Of course we’re going to have too many wars, too much spending, and too much crime.” ―Naval Ravikant

• “A person who wants everything you have, except your job and work ethic”

• “If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it.”

• “A democracy will always vote itself more benefits than it is prepared to produce.” ―Alexis de Tocqueville

• “The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifice.” ―Ayn Rand

• “The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” ―Ayn Rand

• “Capitalism has been called a system of greed — yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of.” ―Ayn Rand

• “Capitalism gave mankind the longest period of peace in history - a period during which there were no wars involving the entire civilized world.” ―Ayn Rand

• “America's founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more — and nothing less. The rest — everything that America achieved, everything she became, everything “noble and just,” and heroic, and great, and unprecedented in human history — was the logical consequence of fidelity to that one principle.” ―Ayn Rand

• “What you owe to yourself is to work for your living. What you owe to your neighbor is not to interfere with his work.” ―Ayn Rand

• “The United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.” ―Ayn Rand

• “Man can survive in only one of two ways - by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others.” ―Ayn Rand

• “The income tax creates more criminals than any other single act of government.” ―Barry Goldwater

• “You don't solve the government's financial problems by stealing from it's citizens.” ―

Things Ben Franklin was able to privatize: • Libraries • Militias • Universities & Schools • Hospitals • Roads • Fire Departments

• “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ―Benjamin Franklin

• “You don't pay taxes - they take taxes.” ―Chris Rock

• “We are living in an era of "woke" capitalism in which companies pretend to care about social justice to sell products to people who pretend to hate capitalism.” ―Clay Routledge

• “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.” ―Confucius

• “The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.” ―David Ricardo

• “The bigger the government the smaller the individual.” ―Dennis Prager

• “If you don't like capitalism, then by all means, leave it. Go grow your own food, purify your own water, build your own shelter, hunt your own meat. Some act as though capitalism is a prison. The beauty of capitalism is that it is made up of entirely voluntary associations.” ―Dylan Allman

• “Those who proclaim themselves “socialists” are usually depressing, have no sense of humor & attended an expensive college. Fate loves irony.” ―Elon Musk

• “Government is a monopoly that can't go bankrupt. ” ―Elon Musk

• “If socialists understood economics they wouldn't be socialists.” ―Friedrich August von Hayek

• “The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” ―Gaius Cornelius Tacitus

• “Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.” ―George Carlin

• “Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.” ―George Orwell

"- “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. -A proclamation by the pigs who control the government in the novel Animal Farm” ―George Orwell

• “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ―George Orwell

• “The legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or altogether to avoid them, by means which the law permists, cannot be doubted.” ―George Sutherland

• “In my many years I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.” ―John Adams

• “Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to incease one's taxes.” ―Judge Learned Hand

• “Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyboody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions.” ―Judge Learned Hand

• “All people, however fanatical they may be in their zeal to disparage and to fight capitalism, implicitly pay homage to it by passionately clamoring for the products it turns out.” ―Ludwig von Mises

• “Suppose you were a member of Congress. And suppose you were an idiot. But I repeat myself.” ―Mark Twain

• “If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper you’re misinformed.” ―Mark Twain

• “Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State’s inhabitants, or subjects.” ―Murray Rothbard

• “We don't offer or deny an intellectual job based upon physical attributes.” ―Michael Thomas

• “We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes non-work.” ―Milton Friedman

• “What causes poverty? Nothing. It's the orignal state, the default and starting point. The real question is, what causes prosperity? Free exchange between individuals (capitalism).” ―Per Bylund

• “There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” ―Robert A. Heinlein

• “I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” ―Robert A. Heinlein

• “Love your country, but never trust its government.” ―Robert A. Heinlein

• “The most terrifying words In the English language are: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."” ―Ronald Reagan

• “Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.” ―Ronald Reagan

• “The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.” ―Ronald Reagan

• “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it and hell where they already have it.” ―Ronald Reagan

• “The U.S. taxpayer: Someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.” ―Ronald Reagan

• “It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.” ―Ronald Reagan

*“Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:

• “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” ―Ronald Reagan

• “A tax loophole is something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform.” ―Russell Long

• “In a Free Society, you are guaranteed the right to speak, but not the right to 'Be Heard'.” ―Steve Simpson

• “A free people claim their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” ―Thomas Jefferson

• “The very same people who say that government has no right to interfere with sexual activity between consenting adults, believe that the government has every right to interfere with economic activity between consenting adults.” ―Thomas Sowell

• “Too many political 'solutions" are solutions to problems created by previous political "'solutions" and wilI be followed by new problems created by their current "solutions."” ―Thomas Sowell

• “Elections should be held on April 16^th - the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.” ―Thomas Sowell

• “Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.” ―Thomas Sowell

• “Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name social justice.” ―Thomas Sowell

• “Hey US Government, can you fix the roads you taxed me to build, so won't foul up my car you tax me annually to drive, that I payed for with the income you also tax, that I park at my home that's highly taxed?” ―US citizen

• “Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.” ―Walter Williams

• “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” ―Winston Churchill

• “So we must beware of a tyranny of opinion which tries to make only one side of a question the one which may be heard. Everyone is in favour of it. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.” ―Winston Churchill

• “You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.” ―Winston Churchill

• “Everyone is entitled to seek his own happiness in the way that seems to him best as long as it does not infringe the liberty of others in striving after a similar end for themselves.” ―Immanuel Kant

• “There is nothing more permanent than a temporary government program.” ―Milton Friedman

• “If pigs could vote, they'd always vote for the guy who brings them the food, even though he is the same guy who is going to slaughter and eat them later.”

• “Capitalism is the belief that both sides of a voluntary exchange can win. Socialism is the belief that only one side can win, at the expense of the other.”

• “There is no such thing as "government funded". It's all taxpayer funded.”

• “A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.”

• “Every time we manage to establish one freedom, they take another one away. Maybe two... My position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand's.” ―Robert A. Heinlein

• Protesting Your right to protest your grievances is not your right to adversely impact my life. Therefore, every city, county or municipality needs to have a designated area for protesters, perhaps the fairgrounds or a park. That way the protesters can protest without the risk of violence or interference and everyone else can get about their lives without interruption.

• “The best way to teach you kids about taxes is by eating 30% of their ice cream.” ―Warren Buffet

• “One of the greatest tragedies in mankind's entire history may be that morality was hijacked by religion.” ―Arthur C. Clarke

• “Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?” ―Carl Sagan

• “If there is a God, he will have to beg for my forgiveness.” ―phrase carved on the walls of a Mauthausen concentration camp cell during WWII

• “People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.” ―Dave Barry

• “Back when the Bible was written, then edited, then rewritten, then rewritten, then re-edited, then translated from dead languages, then re-translated, then edited, then rewritten, then given to kings for them to take their favorite parts, then rewritten, then re-rewritten, then translated again, then given to the pope for him to approve, then rewritten, then edited again, the re-re-re-re-rewritten again...all based on stories that were told orally 30 to 90 years AFTER they happened.. to people who didn't know how to write... so...” ―David Cross

• “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, — as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims), — and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan (Mohammedan) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” ―President John Adams submitted and signed the Treaty of Tripoli, 1797

• “I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.” ―Frank Lloyd Wright

• “The best cure for Christianity is reading the bible.” ―Mark Twain

• “Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.” ―Mark Twain

• “It (the Bible) is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.” ―Mark Twain

• “It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” ―Mark Twain

• “Faith is believing something you know ain't true.” ―Mark Twain

• “The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” ―Neil deGrasse Tyson

• “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” ―Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

• “How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one.” —Richard Dawkins

• “We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” —Richard Dawkins

• “It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with the experiment, it's wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.” ―Richard P. Feynman

• “The best thing about believing in an afterlife is that you will never find out you were wrong.” ―Ricky Gervais

• “What can be more arrogant than believing that the same god who didn't stop the Holocaust will help you pass your driving test?”

• “The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history.

Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.” ―Robert Heinlein

• “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false. and by the rulers as useful.” ―Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger

• “I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.” ―Stephen Hawking

• “The only difference between a cult and a religion are the number of followers.”

• “The second you’re born, you’re given a name, a religion, a nationality and a race. You spend the rest of your life defending a fictional identity.” ―Brandon Garic Notch

• “There are approximately 4,200 religions in the world today. Some say that 4,199 are false. Some say that 4,200 are false.”

• “Atheism is a conclusion, not a belief.”

• “Science is a method, not a faith.”

• “Skepticism is critical thinking, not a blasphemy.”

• “Religions are just large, popular cults. While cults are small, unpopular religions.”

• “Atheists do not say there is no god, with any more certainty then we say there are no unicorns, tooth fairies, or pink elephants. What we will assert is that there is no reason to believe any of these things actually exist. We will not accept that something exists - including your god - until there is measurable, empirical evidence, that supports its existence.”

• “Strictly speaking, we cannot be certain about anything. but we can be as certain that the christian god does not exist as christians are that thor or zeus do not exist. give us reliable evidence and we will change our minds.”

• “If the love of money is the root of all evil, why do they love it so much at church?”

• “Religious people should be treated the same as flat-earthers.”

• “Atheism is a religion in the same way the OFF is a TV channel.”

• “One of the epiphanies religious should have is the fact that Atheists don't pray and their lives work out the same as anyone else's.”

• “When you are a kid you're told if you behave and act nice Santa will give you toys for Christmas. But if you're bad you get coal. Religion is the same thing but for adults but the stakes are raised. Do God's work and allow yourself to be controlled by faith and you'll be rewarded with pure Bliss in heaven for eternity. But if you sin too much it's eternity of agony in hell.”

• “If you took every holy book, every holy book there's ever been, every religious book, every bit of spirituality, and hid them or destroyed them... then you took every science book and destroyed that, in a thousand years' time, those science books would be back exactly the same, because the tests would always turn out the same. Those religious books would either never exist or they'd be totally different, because there's no test.” ―Ricky Gervais

• “When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.” ―Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

• “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” - Mark Twain

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. ~ Christopher Hitchens

If you need the threat of eternal suffering to be a good person, maybe you're not a good person.

• "Helping people is a good thing to do. Being forced to help people is wrong. See the difference?""