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What is a man but the sum of his thoughts?

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There is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation, if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship ... We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that rely primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence. On infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

President John F. Kennedy, "Secret Societies" speech, April 27, 1961

Milton Freedman: Free to Choose

Herbert E. Meyer: Why Americans Hate This "Immigration" Debate

F.A. Hayek: The Road to Serfdom

Fr. Robert A. Sirico: Socialism, Free Enterprise, and the Common Good

Roy Beck: Immigration By The Numbers:This is a MUST SEE VIDEO on the illegal immigration problem - not only will you learn the facts but you will witness a most gifted teacher illustrating his points in an unforgettable style!

President John F. Kennedy: "Secret Societies" speech

President Dwight D. Eisenhower: warnings against the "military-industrial complex"

Dr. Mortimer J. Adler: Syntopicon essay, Freedom

Personal Statement #62: The Awesome Power of Sacred Directed Purpose: How to call into Being the deepest desires of your Soul! Why all seemingly impossible obstacles will eventually bend to your Sanctified Targeted Intentions; and why Jesus said, Embrace this God-Life, and no Mountain will dare stand in your way! It's as good as done! You cannot be stopped!

Personal Statement #63: Love In The AfterLife: Summerland: Where Dreams Come True, Part II: How You Will Yet Find Healing from the Devastating Losses of this World! Long, long shall I rue thee, too deeply to tell!

John Adams, December 30, 1765: Before the War, the future President remarked on the growing freedom-loving disposition of his countrymen: "They are extremely proud of their country, and they have reason to be so. Millions, tens and hundreds of millions ... have a pious Horror, of consenting to anything, which may entail slavery on their posterity. They think that the liberties of mankind and the glory of human nature is in their keeping. They know that Liberty has been skulking about in corners from the Creation, and has been hunted and persecuted in all countries, by cruel power. But they flatter themselves that America was designed by Providence for the Theatre, on which Man was to make his true figure, on which science, Virtue, Liberty, Happiness and Glory were to exist in Peace."

Author Unknown: "Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American."

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: "Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacity to think... What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to egoism and passivity. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture... In 1984 ... people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure."

Ludwig von Mises: "The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state. The history of the West, from the age of the Greek polis down to the present-day resistance to socialism, is essentially the history of the fight for liberty against the encroachments of the officeholders."

Edward Gibbon: "Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty."

Proverb: "Always keep enough gold on hand to serve as get-away money, enough to bribe the border guards."

Anonymous American slave (pre-1864): "O, that I were free! I will run away: I had as well be killed running as die standing."

Anonymous freed black man in the pre-Civil War United States (pre-1864): "No day ever dawns for the slave, nor is it looked for. For the slave, it is all night, all night, forever."

Elmer Davis: "This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963): "Freedom is indivisible... When one man is enslaved, all are not free."

Friedrich von Hayek: "Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions... Liberty and responsibility are inseparable."

Patrick Henry: "He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression, for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

Patrick Henry, 1775: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

James Madison, 1788: "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

John Stuart Mill: "A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself."

William Lloyd Garrison, January 1, 1831: "I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation… I am in earnest – I will not equivocate – I will not excuse – I will not retreat a single inch – and I will be heard." Those few words from the inaugural issue of the anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, marked the beginning of the journalistic crusade of William Lloyd Garrison, that would eventually transform into a successful Abolitionist campaign against slavery.

Antonio de Mendoza: "Liberty means responsibility. That's why most men dread it."

Baron Lane: "Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn't stand on the doorstep with toothbrush mustache and swastika armband-it creeps up insidiously ... step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it is gone."

Abraham Lincoln, Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, April 18, 1864: "The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny."

F. A. Hayek: "The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not."

Ludwig von Mises: "Private property creates for the individual a sphere in which he is free of the state. It sets limits to the operation of the authoritarian will. It allows other forces to arise side by side with and in opposition to political power. It thus becomes the basis of all those activities that are free from violent interference on the part of the state. It is the soil in which the seeds of freedom are nurtured and in which the autonomy of the individual and ultimately all intellectual and material progress are rooted."

Adolf Hitler, 1931: "What matters is to emphasize the fundamental idea in my party's economic program clearly - the idea of authority. I want the authority; I want everyone to keep the property he has acquired for himself according to the principle: benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual. But the state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. The Third Reich will always retain its right to control the owners of property."

Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto: "The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."

Stephen Chapman: "Australia's ban on handguns did not stop a killer from shooting 54 people, 35 of them fatally, in a 1996 rampage in Tasmania: He resorted to rifles. ... Thinking (gun control) measures will prevent episodes of mass murder is like thinking you can reduce drunk-driving by banning Budweiser. ... After the 1996 slaughter, the Australian government outlawed semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns. As part of the deal, it bought back 640,000 guns from their private owners. The result? In the first year of the new ban, the murder rate rose 3.2 percent and armed robberies were up 44 percent."

Andrew Fletcher, 1698: "Arms are the only true badges of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave."

George Washington: "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the America people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference -- they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."

Noah Webster: "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power."

Daniel Webster: "Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."

Frederick Douglass: "I appear this evening as a thief and a robber. I stole this head, these limbs, this body, from my master - ran off with them."

Will & Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History: "... freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire. To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way."

Thomas Jefferson: "Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plentitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."

James Burgh, 1774: "No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion."

Ronald Reagan: "Two visions of the world remain locked in dispute. The first believes all men are created equal by a loving God who has blessed us with freedom. Abraham Lincoln spoke for us: 'No man,' he said, 'is good enough to govern another without the other's consent.' The second vision believes that religion is opium for the masses. It believes that eternal principles like truth, liberty, and democracy have no meaning beyond the whim of the state. And Lenin spoke for them: 'It is true, that liberty is precious,' he said, 'so precious that it must be rationed.' Well, I'll take Lincoln's version over Lenin's - and so will citizens of the world if they're given free choice."

Lord Acton, The History of Freedom in Antiquity, 1877: "It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority ... from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason."

Charles Bradlaugh, English reformer, 1890: "Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful.... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race."

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Dissent, Olmstead v. U.S., 1928: "The makers of our Constitution sought to protect Americans.... They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."

Erwin Griswold, Dean, Harvard Law School, 1960: "The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights."

Voltarine De Cleyre: "Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that 'Freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license'; and they will define and define freedom out of existence."

Frank Cobb, Editor, New York World, 1920: "The Bill of Rights is a born rebel. It reeks with sedition. In every clause it shakes its fist in the face of constituted authority... it is the one guarantee of human freedom to the American people."

R. H. Crossman, Editor, New Statesman, 1952: "Freedom is always in danger, and the majority of mankind will always acquiesce in its loss, unless a minority is willing to challenge the privileges of its few and the apathy of the masses."

Dante, Monarchy, 1309: "Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few in their mind."

Clarence Darrow, 1920: "You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free."

President John F. Kennedy: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

President Gerald Ford, 1976: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926: "The fact is that liberty, in any true sense, is a concept that lies quite beyond the reach of the inferior man's mind. He can imagine and even esteem, in his way, certain false forms of liberty - for example, the right to choose between two political mountebanks... but the reality is incomprehensible to him. And no wonder, for genuine liberty demands of its votaries a quality he lacks completely, and that is courage. The man who loves it must be willing to fight for it... More, he must be able to endure it - an even more arduous business."

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859: "If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."

Jean Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762: "Free people, remember this: You may acquire liberty, but once lost it is never regained."

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, 1869: "All men's instincts, all their impulses in life, are efforts to increase their freedom. Wealth and poverty, health and disease, culture and ignorance, labor and leisure, repletion and hunger, virtue and vice, are all terms for greater or less degree of freedom."

William Pitt the Younger, British Prime Minister: "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513: "There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things..... Whenever his enemies have occasion to attack the innovator they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable... It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free."

Abraham Lincoln (paraphrased): Responding to a heckler during the Lincoln-Douglas debates: "What's that? If I love Negroes so much why don't I marry one? I protest against that counterfeit logic that assumes because I do not want a black woman as a slave that I must necessarily have her for a wife! I need not have her for either! I can just let her alone. That is all that I ask for the Negro. If you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy."

George W. Bush, Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 2005: "We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home - the unfinished work of American freedom. In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.”

Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness: "Most people equate discipline with an absence of freedom... In fact, the opposite is true. Only the disciplined are truly free. The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions. Can you play the piano? I can't. I don't have the freedom to play the piano. I never disciplined myself."

Edward Gibbon: "In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security."

Abigail Adams, March 31, 1776: Commenting on slave-owners in a letter to her husband John at the Philadelphia Congress: "I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow-creatures of theirs."

P.J. O’Rourke, Forbes, 5-7-07, Adam Smith: Web Junkie: “The free market is more than a place to shop; it is an enormous network of voluntary association. The free market fosters civil, political and personal liberties … the Internet quickly and cheaply expands this network of voluntary association…The importance of voluntary association to freedom cannot be overstated… In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith said that an individual ‘stands at all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons.’ Smith saw that the free market answered liberty's need for a larger network of voluntary association. The pursuit of self-interest means that the free market has built-in incentives for network maintenance and expansion... The Internet is an advance for voluntary association. It adds freedom to markets, decreases the force of coercion and gives persuasion greater sway over power…”

Ludwig von Mises: Marxist economists disdain capitalism's untidy and inefficient, they say, unplanned economy. Hogwash, says Mises. Laissez-faire is not mindless and random economic activity - it is individual planning writ large in the marketplace, each person acting as he or she judges best: “The alternative is not plan or no plan - the question is who's planning? Should every member of society plan for himself? or should a benevolent government alone plan for them all? The issue is not automatism versus conscious action. It is autonomous action of each individual versus the exclusive action of the government. It is freedom versus government omnipotence. Laissez-faire does not mean let soulless mechanical forces operate. It means let each individual choose how he wants to cooperate in the social division of labor. Let the consumers determine what the entrepreneurs should produce. Planning [as liberals use the term] means let the government alone choose and enforce its rulings by the apparatus of coercion and compulsion."

Ludwig von Mises: Should the government be allowed to regulate dangerous or excessive consumption, for example, narcotics? "Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government's benevolent providence to the protection of the individual's body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays? from looking at bad paintings and statues? from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies is much more pernicious both for the individual and for the whole society than that done by narcotic drugs."

David Hume: "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom that it must steal in upon them by degrees and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes in order to be received."

Alexis de Tocqueville: De Tocquelle understood that democracy is an essentially individualist institution -- and that it stands in unremitting conflict with socialism: "Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom; socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But, notice the difference. While democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."

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