Peter Hitchens Quotes

The Left likes to think of itself as the bulwark of progressive liberal individualism, and yet it seeks to progressively coerce others to fund every social program under the sun via majority rule.

When government grows, it breaks the family.

The Left regards the Constitution as defective and outmoded - in part because it impedes the government's ability to control institutions, like churches and families, which stand between the state and individuals.

We regard education as a means of safeguarding the family from too great a reliance upon the state rather than as a means for the state to take over the responsibilities of the family.

I believe you can divide the people in to two basic groups, those who believe government is a necessary good and those who believe it is a necessary evil, those who want government to take care of them, those who want government to leave them alone.

[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.

Conservatives believe government's principal functions are the preservation of freedom and removal of restraints on the individual. Liberalism's ascent in the first two-thirds of this century reflected the new belief that government should also confer capacities on individuals. Liberalism's decline in the final third of this century has reflected doubts about whether government can be good at that, or whether government that is good at that is good for the nation's character.

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.

Socialism requires that government becomes your god.

Although the big word on the left is 'compassion,' the big agenda on the left is dependency.

Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free.

Who can be against progress, after all? But it's a fraudulent use of the word - because for the Progressive, progress is marked not be how free you are, but how much government can 'do' for you.

This administration in Washington that's in power now clearly believes that government is not only the answer to every need, but it's the most qualified to make the most central decisions for every American in every area.

The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.

The War on Poverty did not work because it was a war on shame … a war on the family and a war on God.

the president [Truman], all who seriously believe in a socialized state, every left wing organization in America and the Communist Party.

The state can destroy families, but it can rarely save families.

If ... the taking over the tobacco trade by the state was socialistic, Napoleon and Metternich would rank among the founders of Socialism.

People who believe in governmental regulation and intervention in life—for them government is a church.

I think that for social conservatism to make sense as a political world view, it has to have a more capacious understanding of what kind of society it wants than just saying, 'Leave us alone and let us pass laws against abortion.'

The path chosen by Barack Obama and the Democrat Party is the road to 'small-c- communism' - and the important thing to understand is that they are quite happy with that choice.

Liberals don't believe in the ultimate concept of self-reliance, which is why they look to the government for stability.

When it comes to social issues such as the role of the family, I'm certainly more conservative than Angela Merkel. But on the big questions on what direction and where Germany should develop, when it comes to the economy, then we have very similar views.

As soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individuals mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest details.

In a thousand fields the welfarists, statists, socialists, and interventionists are daily driving for more restrictions on individual liberty.