Kim Stanley Robinson Quotes

No American conservative has ever argued that the government should never be involved in peoples' lives. That is anarchy, and we don't argue for that.

If conservatives really believed in individual liberty, as they endlessly claim — and if they used both halves of their brains — then they'd be libertarians. Instead, they sabotage themselves, and their cause, by constantly generating one spurious reason after another to deprive other people of their freedom.

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.

Libertarians recognize the inevitable pluralism of the modern world and for that reason assert that individual liberty is at least part of the common good.

The Republican Party has been captured by a bunch of extremists … People who maintain that markets will take care of everything, that you leave it to the markets and the markets know best. Therefore, you need no government, no interference with business. Let everybody pursue his own interests. And that will serve the common interest. Now, there is a good foundation for this. But it's a half-truth.

I think there are plenty of Libertarians that are socially conservative.

The state ought not to intervene to prevent individuals from doing things that not only are no risk to others but are of no risk to themselves either.

The right of such control is already admitted by the State Socialists, though they maintain that, as a matter of fact, the individual would be allowed a much larger liberty than he now enjoys.

The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.

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.

The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire.

Private interests often keep up Customs and Privileges, when the reasons of them are ceased

No class of Americans ... has ever objected ... to any amount of government meddling if it appeared to benefit that particular class.

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, insofar as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

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. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.

Libertarians are my most intense enemies

The wisdom of the few may be the light of mankind, but the interest of the few is not the profit of mankind, nor of a commonwealth.

Libertarians and most conservatives boldly and nobly take a stand for our right to keep and bear arms. Not so we can go duck hunting, but so we can defend ourselves and our families from invasion. And so we can, if necessary, defend our liberty from the possibility of a tyrannical state.

One of the problems of living in a free country is that you have free access to everything.

A libertarian is someone who can believe that the police are no more than a gang of thugs without realizing that in the absence of police, thugs will gather into gangs.

Between law and equity there is, perhaps there must always be, a considerable interval. Between law and absolute morality there is at times patent contradiction. The undue protection of class interests, the neglect of interests of large classes; the legislation which consults, chiefly and above all else, the profit of the legislator, whether he be king, or noble, or popular assembly; the legislation which postpones moral to material interests, and which makes havoc of man's highest good in order to gratify his lower instincts, his passing caprice, his unreasoning passion -- all this and much else appears to forbid enthusiasm for human law.

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

We did not become libertarians because we are altruists.

I'm pretty relaxed on what people should be able to do as long as they're not hurting anybody else.

What people do in their private lives, these are not big issues that our country's dealing with.