Voting cannot be a substitute for individual consent, as voting is forced upon all people whether they agree with having a vote in the first place or not. —Jack Lloyd, The Definitive Guide to Libertarian Voluntaryism
Statism is a system of institutionalized violence and perpetual civil war. It leaves men no choice but to fight to seize political power—to rob or be robbed, to kill or be killed. When brute force is the only criterion of social conduct, and unresisting surrender to destruction is the only alternative, even the lowest of men, even an animal—even a cornered rat—will fight. There can be no peace within an enslaved nation. —Ayn Rand
We defer to authority figures because they are supposed to know more than we do. If a mistake is made, it’s easy to lay the blame at their feet. Ultimately, however, we are responsible for choosing the authority figure we defer to. Choosing to defer to one who urges aggression against others still puts the responsibility on us. —Dr. Mary J. Ruwart, Healing Our World
If our freedom is so fragile that it must be continuously protected by giving it up, then we are in deep trouble. —Karl Hess
I want to break away from this two-party system and I think it’s important for people to know that there’s other candidates out there who really toe the line between Democrat and Republican. —Melissa Joan Hart
If the right to vote were expanded to seven year olds, its policies would most definitely reflect the legitimate concerns of children to have adequate and equal access to free french fries, lemonade and videos. —Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy the God that Failed
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. —Thomas Sowell
Both Left and Right are reactionary and authoritarian. That is to say, both are political. They seek only to revise current methods of acquiring and wielding political power. Radical and revolutionary movements seek not to revise but to revoke. The target of revocation should be obvious. The target is politics itself. —Karl Hess (The Death of Politics)
The practical problem is we have, historically, been so beaten down by the state, from kings and emperors, presidents and bureaucrats, that we now accept the lash of compulsion, so long as we can preserve the illusion that the whip was constructed with our consultation. Our debate is cordoned off into a small rhetorical space, where we discuss who is allowed to wield the whip this year or next year. We line up to vote for someone who will whip us less, and our adversaries more, but we never question the whip itself. —Robert Weir (WhyNotLibertarianism.com)
The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that-however bloody-can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave. —Lysander Spooner