People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all.
I do not want to live under a philanthropy. I do not want to be taken care of by the government.... We do not want a benevolent government. We want a free and a just government.
The vision of Christ that thou dost see is my vision's greatest enemy . Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read'st black where I read white. His seventy disciples sent against religion and government .
Faith-based organizations also need a guarantee they will not be forced to give up their right to hire people of their own faith as the price of competing for federal money. If we want this program to be effective and to save lives, people have got to say interfacing with government will not cause me to lose my mission.
Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose.
For my part, I am very much more afraid of the man who does a bad thing and does not know it is bad than of the man who does a bad thing and knows it is bad; because I think that in public affairs stupidity is more dangerous than knavery, because harder to fight and dislodge.
By adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts, and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government.
We are passing into a social phase in which unless a heroic effort is made for human dignity and freedom, gold will be the sole method of government and therefore the sole standard of manners.
The national government...will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality.
These, then, are the four kinds of royalty. First the monarchy of the heroic ages; this was exercised over voluntary subjects, but limited to certain functions; the king was a general and a judge, and had the control of religion The second is that of the barbarians, which is a hereditary despotic government in accordance with law. A third is the power of the so-called Aesynmete or Dictator; this is an elective tyranny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is in fact a generalship, hereditary and perpetual.
When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That's dangerous for human development.
Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help.
I am distinctly opposed to visibly arrogant and arbitrary extremes of government--but this is simply because I wish the safety of an artistic and intellectual civilisation to be secure, not because I have any sympathy with the coarse-grained herd who would menace the civilisation if not placated by sops.
I must have dialogue with the Chinese government, and dialogue requires compromise. Therefore, I'm speaking for genuine self-rule, not for independence.