Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination of William H. Pryor, Jr. to be Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit (June 11, 2003)
“I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself "libertarian."… But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible… The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron.”
In an article http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian published by Cato Unbound (April 13, 2009)
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American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and hedge fund m… 1967Related quotes
Source: Wall and Piece (2007)
Interview published in Reason (1 July 1975)
1970s
Je confesse aujourd'hui de bonne foi que je m'en veux d'avoir autrefois vu en noir, et le gouvernement révolutionnaire et Robespierre et Saint-Just. Je crois que ces hommes valaient mieux à eux seuls que tous les révolutionnaires ensemble.
[in Gracchus Babeuf avec les Egaux, Jean-Marc Shiappa, Les éditions ouvrières, 1991, 69, 27082 2892-7]
On Maximilien de Robespierre
Statement (8 November 1998)
1990s
“I believe in my tusks.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies.”
"The Stars Go Over The Lonely Ocean" (1940)
Context: Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy
And the dogs that talk revolution,
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies.
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)