Karl Hess Quotes

The revolution occurs when the victims cease to cooperate.

Libertarianism is rejected by the modern left - which preaches individualism but practices collectivism. Capitalism is rejected by the modern right-which preaches enterprise but practices protectionism.

The fundamental question of politics has always been whether there should be politics.

To survive, the people in neighborhoods are going to have to secede.

It is flawed by one thing: the abstraction of patriotism. People who will damn the government from morning till night, and oppose the State in a million and one ways will, at a time of national crisis, become incredibly patriotic, and begin to say they will do anything for the State. And they begin to talk of duty, service, sacrifice … all of the words that are the worst words in the world, it seems to me, in a human sense. … I don't know why this is, unless it is that these are such good-hearted people that they really believe that the American state is totally different from any other state - and it's certainly somewhat different. And they feel that it is important to preserve - they feel they're preserving the country, but the only language that's available is, to preserve the State. I have an idea that one of these days, there will be another language, in which we can talk about preserving the country - the landscape, the neighborhoods, the people, the communities - without talking about preserving the State. At which point there will be a lot of radical farmers, factory workers, and small-town residents in this country.

My own interest is the responsibility of people to be responsible for their own lives and, with their neighbors, for their public space and actions. To sing their own songs. To make their own inventions..To build and not just to envy. To light that candle which is so much better than cursing the darkness. To be as much as the human condition can sustain, rather than being only what a system can allow.

No person is so grand or wise or perfect as to be the master of another person. Teacher, perhaps. Setter of good example, perhaps. Genius, perhaps. But master, no.

When you put your faith in big government, you end up an apologist for mass murder.

A Call for Revolution, 1993 Libertarianism is rejected by the modern left - which preaches individualism but practices collectivism. Capitalism is rejected by the modern right - which preaches enterprise but practices protectionism. The libertarian faith in the mind of man is rejected by religionists who have faith only in the sins of man ... The libertarian insistence that each man is a sovereign land of liberty, with his primary allegiance to himself, is rejected by patriots who sing of freedom but also shout of banners and boundaries.

A 7-11 parking lot beat down is how life is.

There is no better way to return the matter of taxation to full public discusssion than to repeal the withholding taxes on wages and salaries. Only when the American people are confronted with the enormous excesses of government in a personal and direct way - by an annual bill for services rendered - will they be able to make an informed judgment about which services they want and which ones they can do without.

Liberty, finally, is not a box into which people are to be forced. Liberty is a space in which people may live. It does not tell you how they will live. It says, eternally, only that we can.

In a laissez-faire society, there could exist no public institution with the power to forcefully protect people from themselves. From other people (criminals), yes. From one's own self, no.