It is easier to grow in dignity than to make a start.
When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we, in essence, accept that the state owns our bodies.
The catch-all phrase "the war on terrorism", in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against "criminal gangsterism". Terrorism is a tactic. You can't have a war against a tactic. It's deliberately vague and non-definable in order to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere and under any circumstance.
Ideas are very important to the shaping of society. In fact, they are more powerful than bombings or armies or guns. And this is because ideas are capable of spreading without limit. They are behind all the choices we make. They can transform the world in a way that governments and armies cannot. Fighting for liberty with ideas makes more sense to me than fighting with guns or politics or political power. With ideas, we can make real change that lasts.
I lean toward a flat tax. But I want to make it real flat, like ZERO.
People should not be able to vote to take away the rights of others.
If you give up on your principles I don’t think that’s being pragmatic. . . Doing the wrong thing, even partially, isn’t being practical. . . if you have the right ideas and are forceful enough. . . I think you can get the support you need.
Everyone knows how to choose; few know how to let go. But it's only by letting go of each experience that you make room for the next. The skill of letting go can be learned, and once learned you will enjoy living much more spontaneously.
Poetry is also the physical self of the poet, and it is impossible to separate the poet from his poetry.
It's hard to remember when you look at a magazine or when you look at pictures of people, and you forget that those people are people like you. They have flaws and insecurities. That's so easy to forget, even for me, as somebody who's sometimes in those magazines.
To cut short the question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent, and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?