“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.”

"Revenge of the Cookie Monster".

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L. Neil Smith 99
American writer 1946

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“Most libertarians think of themselves as in some sense egoists. If they believe in rights, they believe these rights belong to them as individuals. If not, they nonetheless look to themselves and others as so many individuals possessed of power to be reckoned with. Either way, they assume that the opposite of egoism is altruism.”

Bob Black (1951) American anarchist

The altruists, Christian or Maoist, agree. A cozy accomodation; and, I submit, a suspicious one. What if this antagonistic intedependence, this reciprocal reliance reflects and conceals an accord? Could egoism be altruism’s loyal opposition?
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“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to ensure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path.”

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“I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian. I was the first to really go after George W. on his treatment of prisoners.”

William Safire (1929–2009) American journalist

"William Safire to End Op-Ed Run at N.Y. Times" by Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post (16 November 2004) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52678-2004Nov15.html.
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“Both are torn halves of an integral freedom, to which however they do not add up.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

On high culture and popular culture, in a letter http://www.scribd.com/doc/11510904/Adorno-Letters-to-Walter-Benjamin to Walter Benjamin (18 March 1936)

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