Here are some quotes I find both relevant and profound. I know this seems like a lot of reading, but it really captures the American spirit of freedom and reminds us of our forefathers dream..............which has become a nightmare.

"When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more."  -- John Adams

"Let the laws be clear, uniform and precise; to interpret laws is almost always to corrupt them." -- Voltaire

"The man who lives under the servitude of laws takes,
without being aware of it, the soul of a slave.  -- Georges Ripert

"There is no zeal blinder than that which is inspired
with a love of justice against offenders." -- Henry Fielding

"The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and his fellow men." ------ Robert G. Ingersoll

"An anarchist is anyone who doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do."
-- Ammon Hennacy
(1893-1970) Catholic anarchist, pacifist, vegetarian, draft refuser in two world wars, tax resister, "one-person revolution in America."
Source: Whenever Ammon was arrested for any number of reasons, mostly for "illegal" picketing, instead of pleading guilty or innocent he would plead 'anarchy'. This was his reply to the judge's question 'What is an anarchist?'

"Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other." -------- Michel de Montaigne

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
-- Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
Source: November 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith, quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy

"Our constitutions purport to be established by 'the people,' and, in theory, 'all the people' consent to such government as the constitutions authorize. But this consent of 'the people' exists only in theory. It has no existence in fact. Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given." ------- Lysander Spooner
(1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist

"It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disfranchise the public; and assuming that certain powers by divine right have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind." -- W. E. B. Du Bois
(1868-1963) Professor, Civil Rights Activist, NAACP Founding Member

“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."------------ James Madison
(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President

"These things I believe:
That government should butt out.
That freedom is our most precious commodity and
if we are not eternally vigilant, government will take it all away.
That individual freedom demands individual responsibility.
That government is not a necessary good but an unavoidable evil.
That the executive branch has grown too strong,
the judicial branch too arrogant
and the legislative branch too stupid.
That political parties have become close to meaningless.
That government should work to insure the rights of the individual,
not plot to take them away.
That government should provide for the national defense
and work to insure domestic tranquillity.
That foreign trade should be fair rather than free.
That America should be wary of foreign entanglements.
That the tree of liberty needs to be watered from time to time
with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
That guns do more than protect us from criminals;
more importantly, they protect us from the ongoing threat of government.
That states are the bulwark of our freedom.
That states should have the right to secede from the Union.
That once a year we should hang someone in government
as an example to his fellows."--------- Lyn Nofziger
[Franklyn C. Nofziger] Press Secretary for President Reagan

"[T]he State's criminality is nothing new and nothing to be wondered at. It began when the first predatory group of men clustered together and formed the State, and it will continue as long as the State exists in the world, because the State is fundamentally an anti-social institution, fundamentally criminal. The idea that the State originated to serve any kind of social purpose is completely unhistorical. It originated in conquest and confiscation -- that is to say, in crime. It originated for the purpose of maintaining the division of society into an owning-and-exploiting class and a propertyless dependent class -- that is, for a criminal purpose. No State known to history originated in any other manner, or for any other purpose. Like all predatory or parasitic institutions, its first instinct is that of self-preservation. All its enterprises are directed first towards preserving its own life, and, second, towards increasing its own power and enlarging the scope of its own activity. For the sake of this it will, and regularly does, commit any crime which circumstances make expedient."
----- Albert Jay Nock (1870-1945)

Source: The Criminality of the State, America Mercury Magazine, March, 1939

"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly and wickedness of the government may engage itself? Under what concealment has this power lain hidden,
which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest right of personal liberty? Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it? ... A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men."
------ Daniel Webster (1782-1852), US Senator

"But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave."
-- Lysander Spooner
(1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist
Source: The Constitution of No Authority (Boston: 1870); http://www.lysanderspooner.org/

"Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." -- George W. Bush
(1946- ) 43rd US President, Yale Skull & Bones Society

"At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted."  ----- Eric Idle (1943- ) British Comedian

"Violent resistance against the power of the state is the last resort of the minority in its effort to break loose from the oppression of the majority. ... The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state."   ---- Ludwig von Mises
(1881-1973) Economist and social philosopher

"Unless they can pass the same test that immigrants must pass to become citizens, people shouldn't be allowed to vote. The idea that there is some public benefit in ignoramuses and morons pulling levers next to names on a ballot is one of the evil myths of post-modern America. The purpose of voting, in our country, is to select men and women with the competence and integrity to operate the mechanics of government fixed by our Constitution. For this process to have any public benefit requires that the choices be made on an intelligent, knowledgeable and reasoned basis."
-- Charley Reese

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
-- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) Prime Minister of England

"As long as I don’t write about the government, religion, politics, and other   institutions,
I am free to print anything." -- Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais (1732-1799)

"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."
-- H. L. Mencken
(1880-1956) American Journalist, Editor, Essayist, Linguist, Lexicographer, and Critic

"No good government but what is republican... the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.'" -- John Adams
(1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President

"A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years."
-- Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist

"Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State ... Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual."
-- Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Italian dictator during WW2

"The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State." -- Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987)

"Whereas it has been proposed that the United States of America become a part of a world federal government; and ... this program...would entail the surrender of our national sovereignty and...bring into being a form of government whose authority would supersede that of the Constitution of The United States Government; and
...institute a system of laws where-by American citizens could be tried by aliens in controversion of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States; and ...the Veterans of Foreign Wars is composed solely of men who have worn the uniform of the United States on foreign shores and in hostile waters in time of war and from their personal experiences are familiar with the traditions and operations of other countries; and
...many of our comrades rest forever in foreign soil and their sacrifices were made to retain the dignity
and sovereignty of the United States of America: Now therefore, be it Resolved by the Fiftieth Annual Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, That we hereby declare that we are unalterably opposed to any program which would entail the surrender of any part of the sovereignty of the United States of America in favor of a world government..."
-- Veterans of Foreign Wars

"The right to unite freely and to separate freely is the first and most important of all political rights."
-- Mikhail A. Bakunin

"The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy."
-- Woodrow Wilson
(1856-1924) 28th US President

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt.

He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice."  -- Albert Einstein

"One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence."

-- Charles A. Beard

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone."  -- Frederic Bastiat

"But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

-- Declaration of Independence  July 4, 1776

"Fact of the matter is, there is no hip world, there is no straight world. There's a world, you see, which has people in it who believe in a variety of different things. Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence." -- Frank Zappa  (1940-1993), Musician

"I should, indeed, prefer twenty men to escape death through mercy, than one innocent to be condemned unjustly." -- Sir John Fortescue

"Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."  -- Henry David Thoreau

"Liberty is the soul's right to breathe and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight."  -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

"You cannot become a truly effective advocate unless you know all sides of your subject thoroughly, opposing arguments as well as your own."     -- G. R. Capp

"The most unresolved problem of the day is precisely the problem that concerned the founders of this nation: how to limit the scope and power of government. Tyranny, restrictions on human freedom, come primarily from governmental restrictions that we ourselves have set up."  -- Milton Friedman

"Popular revolt against a ruthless, experienced modern dictatorship, which enjoys a monopoly over weapons and communications, ... is simply not a possibility in the modern age." -- George Kennan (1904-2005) US advisor, diplomat, political analyst, and Pulitzer-prize winning historian

"Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose." -- Joseph Paul Göebbels (1897-1945) Nazi Propaganda Minister

"All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise." -- Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) German Nazi Dictator

"The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it

-- Dr. Joseph Mengele infamous Nazi doctor

"It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head." -- Sally Kempton

"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." -- Richard Salant

(1914-1933) former President of CBS News

"No nation, ancient or modern, ever lost the liberty of speaking freely, writing, or publishing their sentiments,
but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves." -- John Peter Zenger

"There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it." -- William James
(1842-1910) The father of modern Psychology

"If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch." -- Justice Thurgood Marshall
(1908-1993) first Black US Supreme Court Justice Source: 1969

"The first people totalitarians destroy or silence are men of ideas and free minds." -- Isaiah Berlin

"Thoughts are free and are subject to no rule. On them rests the freedom of man, and they tower above the light of nature." -- Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus [Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim] (1493-1541)

“The dictionary definition of a Christian is one who follows Christ; kind, kindly, Christ-like. Anarchism is voluntary cooperation for good, with the right of secession. A Christian anarchist is therefore one who turns the other cheek, overturns the tables of the moneychangers, and does not need a cop to tell him how to behave. A Christian anarchist does not depend upon bullets or ballots to achieve his ideal; he achieves that ideal daily by the One-Man Revolution with which he faces a decadent, confused, and dying world.”

"For this future emancipation, we have to rule out ideologies that aim at reinforcing the state, the police and controls in general, and at reducing liberty." -- André Thirion

"You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken – unspeakable! – fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse – a little tiny mouse! – of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic." -- Sir Winston Churchill

"Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do..." -- Italo Calvino
(1923-1985) Italian writer

"One has to multiply thoughts to the point where there aren't enough policemen to control them."
-- Stanislaw Jerszy Lec (1909-1966) Polish writer

"Having gathered all power to itself, [the State] has become the sole focus of all conflict, and it must construct totalitarian defences to match its total exposure." -- Anthony de Jasay Source: The State [1985] (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998),

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
-- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." -- Dr. Samuel Johnson

"The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it."
-- Justice Robert H. Jackson 1892-1954), U. S. Supreme Court Justice

"Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom." -- A. Whitney Griswold

"To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or knaves." -- Claude-Adrien Helvetius

"The burning of an author’s books, imprisonment for opinion’s sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time." -- Joseph Lewis