James Bovard Quotes

As long as enough people can be frightened, then all people can be ruled. That is how it works in a democratic system and mass fear becomes the ticket to destroy rights across the board.

The first step in saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it, and how we will continue to lose it unless fundamental political changes occur.

America needs fewer laws, not more prisons.

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

It is one of the great tragedies of the US, that most learn most of what they know about the government from the government.

The more powerful government becomes, the more abuses it commits and the more lies it must tell.

If citizens wish to retain their liberty, they cannot assume that those who seek power over them are honest. Skepticism of government is one of the most important-and most forgotten-bulwarks of freedom.

Part of the reason that the government's fear mongering is succeeding is because so many people are so ignorant, that it is easier for government to frighten people in submission.

It is unfortunate that Americans are no longer aware of what the constitution says and what their rights are. Because of that, we are often very passive about what happens when the government violates those rights.

Once a person becomes a government dependent, his moral standing to resist the expansion of government power is fatally compromised.

America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. By trying to seize far more power than is necessary over American citizens, the federal government is destroying its own legitimacy. We face a choice not of anarchy or authoritarianism, but a choice of limited government or unlimited government .

Politicians nowadays treat Americans like medical orderlies treat Alzheimer's patients, telling them anything that will keep them subdued. It doesn't matter what untruths the people are fed because they will not long remember. But in politics, forgotten falsehoods almost guarantee new treachery.

The more people expect from government, the more biased they become against limiting government power.

It is amazing to think after all that has happened in this country in the last few years, the last few decades, that so many people have this blind faith that government is our friend and therefore, we don’t need protections against it.

The vision that the founding fathers had of rule of law and equality before the law and no one above the law, that is a very viable vision, but instead of that, we have quasi mob rule.

A democratic government that respects no limits on its power is a ticking time bomb, waiting to destroy the rights it was created to protect.

The average American family head will be forced to do twenty years' labor to pay taxes in his or her lifetime.

The only things government can do are regulate and redistribute, prohibit and penalize, confiscate and command. Are these the things that liberty is made of? Somebody else's money and an endless list of Thou Shalt Nots?

American democracy is capsizing as a result of the vast increase in the number of government dependents and government employees.

There is no virtue in denying the law of gravity, and there should be no virtue in denying the limitations of government. ... The more we glorify government, the more liberties we will lose.

Foreign aid breeds kleptocracies, or governments of thieves.

The more freedoms Americans lose, the more dangerous government becomes.

This is a case if the President is permitted to be above the law, then we no longer have a republic.

The sheer number of government employees and welfare recipients effectively transforms the purpose of government from maintaining order to confiscating as much as possible from vulnerable taxpayers.

Dependency is the highest political good - at least for politicians. Since the 1930s, politicians have striven to leave no vote unbought.