“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” –Thomas Jefferson
“It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.” –novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
“Suffice it to say that if government attempts to control our total medical spending, sooner or later, it will have to control us. … Like the politicians, most people are oblivious to F.A. Hayek’s insight that the critical information needed to run an economy — or even 15 percent of one — doesn’t exist in any one place where it is accessible to central planners. Instead, it is scattered piecemeal among millions of people. All those people put together are far wiser and better informed than Congress could ever be. Only markets — private property, free exchange and the price system — can put this knowledge at the disposal of entrepreneurs and consumers, ensuring the system will serve the people and not just the political class. This is no less true for medical care than for food, clothing and shelter. … The belief that [politicians] can take care of us is rank superstition. Who will save us from these despots? What Adam Smith said about the economic planner applies here, too: The politician who tries to design the medical marketplace would ‘assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.’” –ABC’s “20/20″ co-anchor John Stossel
