Any alleged right of one man which necessitates the violation of the rights of another is not and cannot be a right. —Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Tag: Individualism
Being libertarian doesn’t mean hating progressives or conservatives. It means loving individual rights enough to not force them to be like you. —Alex Merced
A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority. —Booker T. Washington
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)
Libertarianism is rejected by the modern Left, which preaches individualism but practices collectivism. Capitalism is rejected by the modern Right, which preaches enterprise but practices protectionism. —Karl Hess (The Death of Politics)
A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, or by millions, calling themselves a government. —Lysander Spooner
The true test of one’s commitment to liberty and private property rights… comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree. —Walter Williams
Because the state necessarily commits aggression, the consistent libertarian, in opposing aggression, is also an anarchist. —Stephan Kinsella
Libertarianism is neither of the left nor of the right. It is unique. It is sui generis. It is apart from left and right. The left-right political spectrum simply has no room for libertarianism. Think of an equilateral triangle, with libertarianism at one corner, the left at a second corner and the right at the third corner. We are equally distant from both of those misbegotten political economic philosophies. No, better yet, think in terms of an isosceles triangle, with us at the top and the two of them at the bottom, indicating they have more in common with each other than with us. —Walter Block
The abolitionist is a “button pusher” who would blister his thumb pushing a button that would abolish the State immediately if such a button existed. But the abolitionist also knows that alas, such a button does not exist and that he will take a bit of the loaf if necessary — while always preferring the whole loaf if he can achieve it. —Murray Rothbard