Samizdata

“If there is a businessman who has gone out of his mind and supports the left, I think he must have a lot of skeletons in his cupboard and a lot of things to ask forgiveness for.”

– Silvio Berlusconi quoted in the Financial Times (via Open Europe‘s email list).

Don’t ever become a pessimist… a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.

– Robert A. Heinlein.

“We have paid dearly for idealizing the state. There is no virtue in denying the law of gravity, and there should be no virtue in denying the limitations of government. Good intentions are no excuse for perpetual failure and growing oppression. The more we glorify government, the more liberties we will lose. Freedom is largely a choice between allowing people to follow their own interests or forcing them to follow the interests of politicians, bureaucrats, politicians and campaign contributors.”

James Bovard, “Lost Rights”, cataloguing the destruction of liberties in the USA during the Clinton years. The message applies everywhere and at any time, of course.

“Government provision in water has overseen millions of deaths through lack of sanitation and unsafe water. Bringing in private sector expertise and investment is needed, both to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, but to actively contribute towards social justice the world over. In the vast majority of cases, where the private sector has been called upon, it has delivered the goods – even in cases decried by critics as ‘failures’.”

– Mischa Balen

This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years.

– Dr Brian Day, of Vancouver, explaining what happens if you make private health care illegal, but leave private veterinary clinics alone. (It’s a shame about the picture of Dr Day and Fidel Castro though).