Murray Bookchin Quotes

Primarily, we need to change 100 years of thinking, where we try to extend the promise of American life by moving things to Washington, and let's move it the other way: less of Washington, more from ourselves.

I do not belive that Washington should do for the people wha they can do for themselves through local and private effort.

There's a lot of the Midwest and the West in Justice Rehnquist's approach to constitutional law. And by that I mean a recognition that people know pretty well how to govern themselves, that government that is closest to the people is apt to be more responsive to their legitimate concerns and needs.

Perhaps democracy should be begun at the local level first. America was many local democracies before democracy came to the national level.

Republicans believe that problems are best solved at the level closest to the people and that the nation's strength comes from the diversity of its people, not from an all-powerful central government.

No more top-down politics with Westminster dictating what's right for every community. We must all be partners in designing a better future for our country.

I fear Washington and centralized government more than I do Moscow.

Among the fundamental likeness between the Revolutionary Republicans and the Anarchists is the recognition that the little must precede the great; that the local must be the basis of the general; that there can be a free federation only when there are free communities to federate; that the spirit of the latter is carried into the councils of the former, and a local tyranny may thus become an instrument for general enslavement.

The Libertarian Party is a very mainstream party. It's a mainstream philosophy. It's of returning power from Washington to parents, to schools, to businesses in their communities.

Local assemblies of the people constitute the strength of free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science: they bring it within the people's reach, and teach them how to use and enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.

The White House is not where power comes from in this country. The cities and the local communities of this nation are prepared to save Washington - and not vice versa.

President-elect Trump and I know it won't be Washington, D.C., that unlocks our nation's potential, nor a bigger bureaucracy, tougher mandates, or a federal agency. The answer is local control and listening to parents, students, and teachers.

Getting money out of Whitehall and down to the town hall is also essential if we are going to address the crisis of confidence - and alienation - in our politics.

Fellow conservatives, particularly within the Republican Party, typically do a good job arguing against totalitarian, one-size-fits-all approaches to policy. What works for a family in New York City might not work in Jenison, Michigan, or Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Centrally, I cannot interfere in states.

Solutions and ideas should come from the bottom up, generated by local communities and not mandated from Washington.

That's what the founding fathers intended, that most decisions be made at the state level, not at the federal level.

I think it is time for a radical federalism in this country, where people trust innovation coming from the local level and ramp that up.

I have always insisted on the need for local self-government for Russia, but I never opposed this model to Western democracy. On the contrary, I have tried to convince my fellow citizens by citing the examples of highly effective local self-government systems in Switzerland and New England, both of which I saw first-hand.

Local self-government…is the life-blood of liberty.

Today neither of our two parties maintains a meaningful commitment to the principle of States' Rights. The 10th Amendment is not a 'general assumption' but a rule of law. States rights mean that states have a right to act or not to act, as they see fit, in areas reserved to them.

The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign affairs. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our General Government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.

I think that decisions should rest in the hands of the states. I'm a federalist.

Switzerland is the perfect place where you have volatility at a municipal level that nothing up top - small units competing with each other.

The founders did not want population centers to dictate to the rest of the country. They had already seen that happen in Europe in their day, and they had seen the kind of people that gravitate toward various areas.