Fiat justitia, ruat coelum
Let justice be done though the heavens fall

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. —Ronald Reagan Reason July, 1975

Haul down the bridge, Sir Consul, With all the speed ye may; I, with two more to help me, Will hold the foe in play. In yon strait path a thousand May well be stopped by three. Now who will stand on either hand, And keep the bridge with me? —Thomas Babington Macaulay Horatius

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits. —Ronald Reagan, A Time for Choosing (October 1, 1964)

With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war. —William F. Buckley, Jr. NYT interview (6/24/2004)

I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he has "the freeborn mind." But I doubt whether he can have this without economic independence, which the new society is abolishing. For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government; and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of Government who can criticise its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology. Read Montaigne; that's the voice of a man with his legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone's schoolmaster and employer? —C.S. Lewis

Freedom is individual--there is no "s" on the end of it. You can diminish it, but you cannot divide it and choose to keep 'some freedoms' while giving up others. —Ronald Reagan (1972)

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. —Theodore Roosevelt 1918, following Woodrow Wilson's sweeping crackdown against dissent after the American entry into WWI

War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. —Tolkien (Faramir) The Two Towers

The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone -- one which barely escapes being no government at all. This ideal, I believe, will be realized in the world twenty or thirty centuries after I have passed from these scenes and taken up my public duties in Hell. —H. L. Mencken

We can deny our history and our heritage, but we cannot escape responsibility for the results. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves as, indeed, we are, the defenders of freedom, what's left of it in the world. But we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. —Edward R. Murrow

The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surely curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors thanthe other sort. —Robert Heinlein

Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every moment. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame. —Frank Herbert

...a minority committed to reason, to excellence, to the high principles of civilization, can make a difference. Society is not led from the middle, but from the top -- by the ideas of the thinkers, the discoveries of the explorers, the creations of the inventors, the words of the philosophers, the marvels of the builders, the sacrifices of the pioneers ... rudders are, as a rule, much smaller than the ships they steer. Leverage matters. Leverage, and whose hands are on the wheel. —Arthur C. Clarke The Trigger  (1999) p. 446

The middle way is no way at all. If we finally fail in this great and glorious contest, it will be by bewildering ourselves in groping for the middle way. —John Adams, letter to Gen. Horatio Gates   (1776)

A country preserved at the sacrifice of all the cardinal principles of liberty is not worth the cost of preservation. —U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis Ex Parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall. ) 2, 126 (1866)

He's only been in office two years. It took decades of rule by democrats to build it up, Bush can't tear it down overnight. Incrementalism is how we got here, it's how we have to go back. Besides, he only has control of both houses and the executive branch. Without a filibuster-proof majority, his hands are tied. We're going to be watching him very closely and holding his feet to the fire. We've got to trust him. At least the adults are back in town. He's using good strategery by stealing the democrats agenda. He's a good man -- a godly man. And smart, too. Not only that have you seen how pretty Laura Bush is? That dress hardly makes her look fat at all... You're either with us or against us. Let's roll. —Mr. Nuke Buzzcut