“There s a school of thought today that rejects patriotism. People are made nervous by that intense allegiance to a country. They think it can only lead to war and bloodshed and that fights can be avoided if we all just compromise and get along. And, of course, compromise and getting along are great things as long as you re not sacrificing essential values. But I believe there s a line in the sand, some things that you have to be willing to stand up for, even if it means trouble. Charlie s patriotism is not blind, flag-waving jingoism: it s an intense allegiance to the American concept of liberty. He s through and through. He can talk about it and explain it. And he s shown he s willing to give everything for it. I admire him for that.”
“The right-wing Tories and the conservative Whigs fought Napoleon as the Usurper and the Enemy of the Established Order; the liberal Tories and the radical Whigs fought him as the Betrayer of the Revolution and the Enslaver of Europe; they were all agreed in fighting him, and his notion that their disagreement signified national disunion was mere wishful thinking. All dictators since his time have fallen into the same trap: themselves blind to the values of liberty, they cannot conceive that people who disagree on its meaning can nevertheless unite in upholding their freedoms against patent despotism.”
“A person can choose to stand against adversity, but most people will run from it before they come to terms with who they truly are, a wise person watches through adversity and follows the signs when it is their turn to stand.”
“Now-a-days, men wear a fool s cap, and call it a liberty cap.”
“I don t have much patience for people who enjoy limitless liberty while decrying those who get their hands dirty to make sure it exists for them.”
“such wanton, wild, and usual slips/ As are companions noted and most known/ To youth and liberty.”
“We are always in a constant state of conspiracies, at least thats what they keep telling us...”
“Folk bør ha rett til å fremsette feilaktige eller avskyelige påstander, men man er da også i sin fulle rett til å hevde at det de sier er feilaktig og avskyelig.”
“The popular image [in England] of Bonaparte as a blood-stained tyrant and bandit was admittedly exaggerated, but instinct told even the most radical among the English that if liberty, equality, and justice were ever to come to their shores, it certainly was not Napoleon who would bring them there.”
“Vi har noen rettigheter, plikter og verdier vi tar som en selvfølge. Men også selvfølgelighetene må begrunnes og forsvares. De oppleste og vedtatte sannhetene har godt av å bli utfordret, ikke minst for å gi oss anledning til å lese dem opp og vedta dem på nytt.”
“The Second Amendment is timeless for our Founders grasped that self-defense is three-fold: every free individual must protect themselves against the evil will of the man, the mob and the state.”
“People ask me what I am politically and I ve previously offered this equation: I became a conservative by being around liberals. And I became a libertarian after being around conservatives.”
“So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you.”
“Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the tether of our slavery? Then we can enjoy ourselves and frolic in a more spacious arena and die without having come to the end of the tether. Is that, then, what we call liberty?”
“All liberty required was that the space for discourse itself be protected. Liberty lay in the argument itself, not the resolution of that argument, in the ability to quarrel, even with the most cherished beliefs of others; a free society was not placid but turbulent. The bazaar of conflicting was the place where freedom rang.”
“[T]here is both an intrinsic and instrumental value to privacy. Intrinsically, privacy is precious to the extent that it is a component of a liberty. Part of citizenship in a free society is the expectation that one s personal affairs and physical person are inviolable so long as one remains within the law. A robust concept of freedom includes the freedom from constant and intrusive government surveillance of one s life. From this perspective, Fourth Amendment violations are objectionable for the simple fact that the government is doing something it has no licence to do–that is, invading the privacy of a law-abiding citizen by monitoring her daily activities and laying hands on her person without any evidence of wrongdoing. Privacy is also instrumental in nature. This aspect of the right highlights the pernicious effects, rather than the inherent illegitimacy, of intrusive, suspicionless surveillance. For example, encroachments on individual privacy undermine democratic institutions by chilling free speech. When citizens–especially those espousing unpopular viewpoints–are aware that the intimate details of their personal lives are pervasively monitored by government, or even that they could be singled out for discriminatory treatment by government officials as a result of their First Amendment expressive activities, they are less likely to freely express their dissident views.”
“Free society s organize around the invisible hand while Force society s organize around the State s visible fist.”