Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [401-420] of 1384 Government quotesGovernment QuotesGovernment Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.~ Milton Friedman Government power must be dispersed. If government is to exercise power, better in the county than in the state, better in the state than in Washington. If I do not like what my local community does, be it in sewage disposal, or zoning, or schools, I can move to another local community, and though few may take this step, the mere possibility acts as a check. If I do not like what Washington imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of jealous nations.~ Milton Friedman The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.~ Milton Friedman The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power. But there is also a constructive reason. The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or in literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.~ Milton Friedman The most unresolved problem of the day is precisely the problem that concerned the founders of this nation: how to limit the scope and power of government. Tyranny, restrictions on human freedom, come primarily from governmental restrictions that we ourselves have set up.~ Milton Friedman If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies.~ Milton Friedman One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.~ Milton Friedman The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy. ... Roosevelt's policies were very destructive. Roosevelt's policies made the depression longer and worse than it otherwise would have been.~ Milton Friedman The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. It forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.~ Milton Friedman [T]he burden of government is not measured by how much it taxes, but by how much it spends.~ Milton Friedman In all countries, in all centuries, the primary reason for government to set up schools is to undermine the politically weak by convincing their children that the leaders are good and their policies are wise. The core is religious intolerance. The sides simply change between the Atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Unitarians, etc., depending whether you are talking about the Soviet Union, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, America, etc. A common second reason is to prepare the boys to go to war and the girls to cheer them on.~ Marshall Fritz Charter schools are just public schools on a slightly longer leash. A dog on a long leash is still a dog on a leash.~ Marshall Fritz If you want a Big Brother, you get all that comes with it.~ Erich Fromm The citizen who criticizes his country is paying it an implied tribute.~ J. William Fulbright The United States was supposed to have a limited government because the founders knew government power attracts demagogues and despots as surely as horse manure attracts horseflies.~ Rick Gaber Free enterprise capitalism exists only when people in the private sector are free to pursue their own interests without direction from government. When politicians start passing laws to tell them what to do, or bureaucrats start issuing edicts to tell them what to do, it is no longer capitalism; it's fascism.~ Rick Gaber Enron, of course, is exactly the kind of corporation which could not exist in pure capitalism. As a creature, in effect, of politicians, it was deliberately converted from a small pipeline company into an international conglomerate by conniving scoundrels who designed it from the beginning to use the power of their politician-friends to give it government contracts, subsidies, monopoly powers, and favorable regulations to force prospective customers to do business with them, essentially at gunpoint. Obviously, this is fascism, not capitalism, and what you get more and more of when you work to transform what was once the rule of clear-cut law into the rule of men (especially agenda-driving, nuance-inventing judges and lawyers).~ Rick Gaber Give a good man great powers and crooks grab his job.~ Rick Gaber We operate here under directives which emanate from the White House... The substance of the directives under which we operate is that we shall use our grant making power to alter life in the United States such that we can comfortably be merged with the Soviet Union.~ Rowan Gaither You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.~ John Kenneth Galbraith Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print