Ezra Taft Benson Quotes

It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals.

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

The authority of government . . . can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.

There is nothing government can give you that it hasn't taken from you in the first place.

The only things government can do are regulate and redistribute, prohibit and penalize, confiscate and command. Are these the things that liberty is made of? Somebody else's money and an endless list of Thou Shalt Nots?

I'm a hardcore libertarian - I want everything legal - but I also believe that you have the right to free association.

Some people object to libertarian ideas because there are too many irresponsible people in the world - people who will cause trouble if the government doesn't restrain them.

All our rights are gradually eroded as government gets bigger.

Now I call myself a bleeding heart libertarian. Because I do believe in the principles of Libertarianism as an ideal - because I'm an idealist.

Americans chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them.

A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation.

People have rights and government must be kept from trampling on them.

The liberal, emphasizing the civil and property rights of the individual, insists that the individual must remain so supreme as to make the state his servant.

Government has no other end but the preservation of property.

I know of no mission which this Government has to perform except to protect the citizen in his life, his liberty, and his property. When it fails in these great essentials, it has failed in everything ... and whenever the Government fails ... it ought to be abolished

The Constitution is not about restricting the people; it is about restricting the government.

Libertarian principles are very simple, but you can't violate any of them and still call yourself Libertarian.

Libertarians secretly worried that ultimately someone will figure out the whole of their political philosophy boils down to “Get Off My Property.” News flash: This is not really a big secret to the rest of us.

We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

The founders wanted to make it hard for laws to be passed. They wanted to make it hard for there to be restrictions on the freedom of the people.

I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.

I think that [there is] this fundamental right to privacy and the philosophy that government shouldn't be intrusive.

Unchecked, government social programs are a security threat because they weaken the ultimate line of defense: the free-born citizen whose responsibilities are not subcontracted to the government.

Thirdly, the supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own.

[A]ll power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people. That government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty and the right of acquiring property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their government whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purpose of its institution.