The history of government is the history of violence, of the strong plundering the weak. Wicked tyrants engage in orgies of violence; being rulers they could give free rein to all their desires. —Murray Rothbard
Tag: Violence
Government will mandate that your children be left vulnerable like fish in a barrel in their school; hold you down outside while they are murdered, and then blame you for owning a rifle. —Spike Cohen
What bold messaging means, from a libertarian perspective, is telling the truth. If there’s a libertarian who is telling the truth, there’s no way that it isn’t bold messaging. We are all radicals. We live under the biggest government in the history of the world. As Martin Luther King once said, “The United States government is the biggest purveyor of violence in the world” —Dave Smith
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 are approaching the brink; already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble: “But what can we do to stop it? We haven’t the strength.” We have so hopelessly ceded our humanity that for the modest handouts of today we are ready to surrender up all principles, our soul, all the labors of our ancestors, all the prospects of our descendants—anything to avoid disrupting our meager existence.
When violence bursts onto the peaceful human condition, its face is flush with self-assurance, it displays on its banner and proclaims: “I am Violence! Make way, step aside, I will crush you!” But violence ages swiftly, a few years pass—and it is no longer sure of itself. To prop itself up, to appear decent, it will without fail call forth its ally—Lies. For violence has nothing to cover itself with but lies, and lies can only persist through violence. And it is not every day and not on every shoulder that violence brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit—and this suffices as our fealty.
And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me!
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom. —Ludwig von Mises
![Government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. […] In face of the modern tendencies toward a deification of government and state, it is good to remind ourselves that the old Romans were more realistic in symbolizing the state by a bundle of rods with an ax in the middle than are our contemporaries in ascribing to the state all the attributes of God. —Ludwig von Mises](https://lpmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/lw1289-ludwig-von-mises-deification-of-government.jpg)
![Government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. […] In face of the modern tendencies toward a deification of government and state, it is good to remind ourselves that the old Romans were more realistic in symbolizing the state by a bundle of rods with an ax in the middle than are our contemporaries in ascribing to the state all the attributes of God. —Ludwig von Mises](https://lpmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/lf1289-ludwig-von-mises-deification-of-government.jpg)
![Government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. […] In face of the modern tendencies toward a deification of government and state, it is good to remind ourselves that the old Romans were more realistic in symbolizing the state by a bundle of rods with an ax in the middle than are our contemporaries in ascribing to the state all the attributes of God. —Ludwig von Mises](https://lpmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/f1289-ludwig-von-mises-deification-of-government.jpg)
Government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. […] In face of the modern tendencies toward a deification of government and state, it is good to remind ourselves that the old Romans were more realistic in symbolizing the state by a bundle of rods with an ax in the middle than are our contemporaries in ascribing to the state all the attributes of God. —Ludwig von Mises
Any officer who executes a no-knock raid on peaceful citizens should be treated with complete hatred & contempt by civilized people. —Michael Malice
The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence. —Ron Paul
Men can become more moral only through rational persuasion, not through violence, which will, in fact, have the opposite effect. —Murray Rothbard