Winston Churchill wrote:The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

H.L. Mencken wrote:Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Robert A. Heinlein wrote:Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws - always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" - not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.

I would be satisfied to have the Golden Rule be the only law; I see no need for any other, nor for any method of enforcing it. But if you really believe that your neighbors must have laws for their own good, why shouldn't you pay for it? Comrades, I beg you - do not resort to compulsory taxation. There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

Did you transcribe all that from the spoken word? Just curious...

No, he did not. It's from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It's an excellent book about the revolt of (Australian style) Lunar Colonies against Terran rule.

Nearly everything Heinlein wrote is an excellent read, but he tends to have a strong, bohemian, genius, middle aged gentleman who's so damn charming young (gorgeous) women can barely keep from humping him to pieces but it's okay because he can keep up because he's so awesome (or he abstains for honor reasons until he realizes his position is ridiculous because they're grown women and monogamous sex is culturally enforced and unnatural) as his main protagonist, or someone very close to the main protagonist. They are fun though!

To Sail Beyond the Sunset is one of my top 5.

I asked because of all the spelling and occasional accidental word omission errors.

ah. Probably transcription errors.

From somewhere on twitter:

Gay marriage is legal is 6 states, but having sex with a horse is legal in 23. Good going, America.

Arres wrote:ah. Probably transcription errors.

Nope - it's supposed to be an affectation by the protagonist. He speaks "Lunar" English, not "regular" English.

Nyet!

Arres wrote:It's an excellent book about the revolt of (Australian style) Lunar Colonies against Terran rule

Oh crap! They know about our lunar colonies!

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote:Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

H.L. Mencken wrote:The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

F.A. Hayek wrote:[O]f the revival of European civilisation during the later Middle Ages it could be said that the expansion of capitalism - and European civilisation - owes its origin and raison d'etre to political anarchy.

And yet, some people will still claim that capitalism cannot be done without government...

Who claims that? Clearly pure capitalism is in itself its own set of governing laws. I think what people might say is that government is necessary to keep capitalism from becoming an uncontrollable wild beast when it finally realizes its own power.

"Oh Benson, you are mercifully free from the ravages of intelligence." -- Time Bandits