Tag: Society

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

I do not choose to be a common man,

It is my right to be uncommon…if I can,

I seek opportunity…not security.

I do not wish to be a kept citizen,

Humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.

I want to take the calculated risk;

To dream and to build,

To fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;

I prefer the challenges of life

To the guaranteed existence;

The thrill of fulfillment

To the state of calm Utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence

Nor my dignity for a handout.

I will never cower before any master

Nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect,

Proud and unafraid;

To think and act for myself,

To enjoy the benefit of my creations

And to face the world boldly and say:

This, with God’s help, I have done.

All this is what it meant

To be an Entrepreneur.

起初他们追杀共产党，我没有说话——因为我不是共产党；

后来他们追杀社民党，我没有说话——因为我不是社民党；

接著他们追杀工会成员，我没有说话——因为我不是工会成员；

此后他们追杀犹太人，我没有说话——因为我不是犹太人；

最后他们奔我而来，却再也没有人站起来为我说话了。

中国的好多体制就像一堵墙，上面挖了许多狗洞，然后让我们钻狗洞。

中国作协成功地将一批批野狗驯化成家狗不算，还成了走狗。

It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil.

[Socialistic] economic planning, regulation, and intervention pave the way to totalitarianism by building a power structure that will inevitably be seized by the most power-hungry and unscrupulous.

'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

Analysis is not justification.

If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialist.

Money is one of the greatest instruments of freedom ever invented by man. It is money which in existing society opens an astounding range of choice to the poor man, a range greater than that which not many generations ago was open to the wealthy.

And who will deny that a world in which the wealthy are powerful is still a better world than one in which only the already powerful can acquire wealth?

Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarianism which horrify us follow of necessity.