“What moves me the most when I think about..."

“What moves me the most when I think about my supporters in my presidential campaign are the staggering efforts and creative energies- extraordinary and unprecedented, as far as I can see- that they expended on behalf of a message that promised them no special benefits, no loot taken for their fellow men.  The message promises only freedom, and no special privileges for anyone.  No one is surprised that people donate to a political campaign in the hopes of receiving some special favor if the candidate wins.  I was quite surprised, on the other hand, at how many would donate, volunteer, and vote in pursuit of nothing other than freedom, and the prosperity it naturally brings.” -Page 107 of The Revolution, A Manifesto

“Campaign finance reform was the subject of..."

“Campaign finance reform was the subject of fierce debate in America not long ago.  Yet the debate missed the point.  As long as we have a government that can exploit peaceful, hardworking Americans on behalf of special interests, as long as it can make or break any American business with (for example) tax policy, politically motivated antitrust prosecutions, and ill-considered regulation, and in general as long as economic winners and losers can be determined in Washington, people will want to assure their share of the loot by influencing the political process through money.  Campaign finance reform focuses on the system rather than the cause. 

This is one reason I was so skeptical when friends urged me to run for president.  There are fore more interest groups lobbying in Washington for special benefits and privileges than most Americans can imagine.  I do not oppose just this one or that one.  I oppose the whole apparatus, the whole immoral system by which we use government to exploit our fellow citizens on behalf of our own interests.  For someone like me to win, there would have to be enough Americans who believed in freedom to be able to offset the combined power of interest groups that have grown accustomed to treating the people as a resource to be drained for private gain.  Were there really enough people for that task?” -Pages 106 & 107 of The Revolution, A Manifesto

“Mine is an “isolationist” position only to those..."

“Mine is an “isolationist” position only to those who believe that the world’s peoples can interact with each other only through their governments, or only through the intermediary of a supranational bureaucracy.  That unspoken assumption is dangerous and dehumanizing.  There is nothing isolationist about opposing coercive government-to-government wealth transfers.  Individuals who wish to contribute directly to some worthy cause abroad- and Third World governments whose destructive policies have kept their peoples in miserable poverty are not such a cause - should be perfectly at liberty to do so.  In fact, a recent Hudson Institute study found that in 2006, American citizens voluntarily contributed three times more to help people overseas than did the United States government.  Freedom works.” -Page 102 of The Revolution, A Manifesto

"The definition of liberty I use is the same one..."

"The definition of liberty I use is the same one that was accepted by Thomas Jefferson and his generation. It is the understanding derived from the great freedom tradition... This is the agenda I embrace, and one that I believe all Americans should embrace." -Pages XI & XII of Liberty Defined

"In the days before Medicare and Medicaid...."

"In the days before Medicare and Medicaid, for instance, the poor and elderly were admitted to hospitals at about the same rate they are now, and receive good care. As a physician I never accepted Medicare and Medicaid money from the government, and instead offered cut-rate or free services to those who could not afford care. Before those programs came into existence, every physician understood that he or she had a responsibility toward the less fortunate, and free medical care for the poor was the norm. Hardly anyone is aware of this today, since it doesn't fit into the typical, by-the-script story of government rescuing us from a predatory private sector. Laws and regulations that inflated cost of medical services and imposed unreasonable liability standards on medical professionals even when they were acting in a volunteer capacity later made offering free care cost prohibitive, but free care for the poor was common at a time when America wasn't so "governmentish" (to borrow a word from William Penn). We have lost our belief that freedom works, because we no longer have the imagination to conceive of how a free people might solve its problems without introducing threats of violence- which is what government solutions ultimately amount to."  -Page 85 of The Revolution, A Manifesto

"Take arts funding, for example."

"Take arts funding, for example. Some Americans appear to believe that there would be no arts in America if it were not for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an institution created in 1965.  They cannot imagine things being done any other way, even though they were done another way throughout our country's existence, and throughout most of mankind's history.  While the government requested $121 million for the NEA in 2006, private donations to the arts totaled $2.5 billion that year, dwarfing the NEA budget.  The NEA represents a tiny fraction of all arts funding, a fact few Americans realize.  Freedom works after all." -Page 75 of The Revolution, A Manifesto

"During my public life I have earned the nickname Dr. No....."

"During my public life I have earned the nickname Dr. No, a reference to my previous occupation as a physician combined with my willingness to stand against the entire Congress if necessary to vote no on some proposed measure. (I am told I have been the sole "no" vote in Congress more often than all other members of Congress put together.) As a matter of fact, I don't especially care for this nickname, since it may give people the impression that I am a contrarian for its own sake, and that for some reason I simply relish saying no.  In those no votes, as in all my congressional votes, I have thought of myself as saying yes to the Constitution and to freedom." -Pages 49 & 50 of The Revolution, A Manifesto