Coercion Quotes - Page 9

• There must be no coercion in matters of faith!

  Karen Armstrong

  Matter

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• There is a tendency to think that if we engage too directly with moral questions in politics, that's a recipe for disagreement, and for that matter, a recipe for intolerance and coercion.

  Michael Sandel

  Motivation, Inspiration, Thinking

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• Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand, if necessary, for the defense of our rights, or those of our Southern brethren.

  Isham G. Harris

  War, Men, Rights

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• The function of State coercion is to override individual coercion, and, of course, coercion exercised by any association of individuals within the State. It is by this means that it maintains liberty of expression, security of person and property, genuine freedom of contract, the rights of public meeting and association, and finally its own power to carry out common objects undefeated by the recalcitrance of individual members.

  Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse

  Mean, Rights, Expression

  Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1964). “Liberalism”, p.78, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• [Libertarians] don't denounce what the state does, they just object to who's doing it. This is why the people most victimized by the state display the least interest in libertarianism. Those on the receiving end of coercion don't quibble over their coercers' credentials. If you can't pay or don't want to, you don't much care if your deprivation is called larceny or taxation or restitution or rent. If you like to control your own time, you distinguish employment from enslavement only in degree and duration.

  Bob Black

  People, Receiving, Degrees

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• Government means always coercion and compulsion and is by necessity the opposite of liberty.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Freedom, Mean, Government

  Ludwig Von Mises (1990). “Economic freedom and interventionism: an anthology of articles and essays”

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• I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, War, Believe

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution”, p.152, Algora Publishing

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• I see this as the central issue of our time: how to find a substitute for war in human ingenuity, imagination, courage, sacrifice, patience... War is not inevitable, however persistent it is, however long a history it has in human affairs. It does not come out of some instinctive human need. It is manufactured by political leaders, who then must make a tremendous effort--by enticement, by propaganda, by coercion--to mobilize a normally reluctant population to go to war.

  Howard Zinn

  War, Sacrifice, Issues

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• Tyrants always condemn and seek to replace the market process with government coercion because tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrants think they should do.

  Walter E. Williams

  Thinking, Tyrants, Government

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• Coercion. The unpardonable crime.

  Dorothy Richardson

  Action, Crime, Force

  Dorothy Miller Richardson (1938). “Pilgrimage”

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• The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Law, Errors

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

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• Government is an apparatus of compulsion and coercion.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, Compulsion

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• The only way to settle questions of an ideological nature or controversial issues among the people is by the democratic method, the method of discussion, of criticism, of persuasion and education, and not by the method of coercion or repression.

  Mao Zedong

  Issues, People, Criticism

  Mao Zedong (2017). “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (The Little Red Book) & Other Works”, p.33, Lulu.com

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• Markets are born free, yet no sooner are they born than some would-be emperor is forging chains. Paradoxically, it sometimes happens that the only way to preserve freedom is through judicious controls on the exercise of private power. If we believe in liberty, it must be freedom from both private and public coercion.

  Tim Wu

  Believe, Exercise, Liberty

  Tim Wu (2010). “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”, p.223, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.

  Ronald Reagan

  Father, Government, People

  Ronald Reagan, Michael Reagan (2016). “The Last Best Hope: The Greatest Speeches of Ronald Reagan”, p.3, Humanix Books

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• Most poverty and suffering - whether in a country, a family or a person - flows from disorganization. A stable social order is an artificial accomplishment, the result of an accumulation of habits, hectoring, moral stricture and physical coercion. Once order is dissolved, it takes hard measures to restore it

  David Brooks

  Country, Order, Accomplishment

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• Coercion is as much the tool of the welfare state as it is of communism. The programs and edicts of both are backed by the police force. All of us know this to be true under communism, but it is equally true under our own brand of welfare statism.

  Leonard Read

  Police, Tools, Welfare

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• It [the free market] is an organizational way of doing things, featuring openness, which enables millions of people to cooperate and compete without demanding a preliminary clearance of pedigree, nationality, color, race, religion, or wealth. It demands only that each person abide by voluntary principles, that is, by fair play. The free market means willing exchange; it is impersonal justice in the economic sphere and excludes coercion, plunder, theft, protectionism, and other anti-free market ways by which goods and services change hands.

  Leonard Read

  Mean, Play, Race

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• We need to reduce military budgets; raise living standards; engender respect for learning; support science, scholarship, invention, and industry; promote free inquiry; reduce domestic coercion; involve the workers more in managerial decisions; and promote genuine respect and understanding derived from an acknowledgement of our common humanity and our common jeopardy.

  Carl Sagan

  Military, Common Humanity, Decision

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.178, Ballantine Books

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