M. Stanton Evans Quotes

[Libertarianism] is about curbing state power to let people be and do what they want. Liberalism is about using state power to make people do and be what liberals want. And that makes all the difference in the world.

I believe strongly that most people in this country U.S. don't want a totalitarian state...And when conservatives say, "Get the government out of my backyard," the reality is, you can't say that and put somebody in the White House who's gonna be in your business.

Libertarians regard the state as the Supreme, the eternal, the best organized aggressor against the persons and property of the mass of the public. All states everywhere, whether democratic, dictatorial, or monarchical, whether red, white, blue or brown.

What I want is a sort of new political realignment on libertarian/authoritarian lines, and I want a new consensus to emerge of disaffected liberals, classical liberals, dissident minorities like gays, small-state conservatives, libertarians, people who basically want to be left alone.

... statism systematically violates the rights of individuals and is, therefore, immoral. Because it suppresses the mind and violates men's rights, it thereby causes abysmal poverty and is utterly impractical.

Libertarianism is 'cultish,' say the sophisticates. Of course, there's nothing cultish at all about allegiance to the state, with its flags, its songs, its mass murders, its little children saluting and paying homage to pictures of their dear leaders on the wall, etc.

Trying to be a socialist and a libertarian is obviously a very difficult balancing act, which nobody has pulled off too successfully in this century.

By definition, the moment one crosses from center to left, one accepts more government control of people's lives. Therefore, the further left society moves, the more there is government control over its citizens' lives. It is astonishing that this obvious fact is not universally acknowledged and that the Left has somehow successfully portrayed itself as preoccupied with personal liberty.

A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot - because the first leads inevitably to the second.

Governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people.

The State idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-minded and economic obstacles. I believe it is bad. I have always been against it.

The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that.

I venture on assuring you that I regard the design formed by you and your friends with sincere interest, and in particular wish well to all the efforts you may make on behalf of individual freedom and independence as opposed to what is termed Collectivism.

I do not share the general view that market forces are the basis of personal liberty.

Big-government liberals don't like people with a sense of independence because independent people don't need big government.

The Road To Serfdom was written during WWII, and basically it's an anti-Nazi, anti-communist thing, but also it's an anti-Conservative and anti-Labor-party thing aimed at the British. He was an Austrian, writing in Britain. And I feel like now, I guess, everybody pays lip service to libertarian - and, indeed, many conservative - ideas, and yet they keep moving forward with an increasingly bureaucratic state. It shows itself in all sorts of little ways.

Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and economic sphere.

Fascism isn't a libertarian doctrine! It just isn't, never will be and it can't be cast as one.

Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police.

Americans who value freedom had better be more concerned about the gun control crowd than the criminals. The criminals want your money. The Neo-Totalitarians want your freedom.

Abuse of power isn't limited to 'bad guys' in other nations. It happens in our own country. Those in power get jaded, deluded, and seduced by power itself. I have a reverence for individuality. I've always considered myself too individualistic to be either right-wing or left-wing. I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. People should be able to be what they want to be and do what they want - as long as they're not harming other people. I am a libertarian.

I would like to be interpreted as a liberal libertarian, like leave everybody alone and let them do their own thing.

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals - if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

The State is, and always has been, the great single enemy of the human race, its liberty, happiness, and progress.