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Justice is no virtue.
The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government.
I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ``needed'' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents ``interests,'' I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
I don't have any respect for the Religious Right. There is no place in this country for practicing religion in politics. That goes for Falwell, Robertson and all the rest of these political preachers. They are a detriment to the country. -- Interview by The Advocate
Sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea. -- At a news conference in December of 1961
We, as a nation, are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and people...I say it is time to put conscience back in government. And by good example, put it back in all walks of American life.
Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar.
I don't like being called the New Right; I'm an old, old son-of-a-bitch. I'm a conservative. -- Showing his contempt for a new conservative movement focused on Republican Jesse Helms of North Carolina, 1992.
You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.
However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." -- From the Congressional Record, September 16, 1981
Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass. -- Response to Jerry Falwell stating he was concerned that Sandra Day O'Connor might be moderate on abortion and other social issues, 1981.
A lot of so-called conservatives don't know what the word means. They think I've turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. -- Interview to the Los Angeles Times, 1994
By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars...Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northem Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state? -- Speech to Senate, Sept. 15, 1981
Now he would be called a libertarian. He was a true classical liberal, as opposed to the socialists who have stolen the liberal label.
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