Building criminals, one innocent person at a time
Here are some of my favorite quotes from Ayn Rand, and very poignant given our current situation in the Middle East and in our own economy:
“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
“I have come here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life…. It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.”
“There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns.”
“Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman’s tool is values; the bureaucrat’s tool is fear.”
“Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.”
“Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation’s troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.”
“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.”
Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.