Health care costs so darn much because we pay so darn little for it… So we have almost no incentive to care about how much it cost… Most of what we s… - David R. Henderson

People often criticize government schools in the United States for teaching little and doing it in boring ways, yet many advocate increasing the amount of time that children are in school. This reminds me of the old joke about two people complaining about the food at a restaurant. ‘The food tastes awful,’ says one. The other replies, ‘And the portions are so small.’ Given the amount of oppression and simple boredom that goes on in government schools today, thank goodness the portions are so small.

Why did all these people—Lady Godiva, the barons of England, William Tell, the Founding Fathers of the United States, and Henry David Thoreau—oppose taxes? Because they understood that taxation is, in essence, legalized theft. When a government taxes you, it takes something you own without your consent. That’s exactly what a thief does. The main difference is that the thief is breaking the law, whereas the government is (usually) taking your money legally.

West points out that early in the nineteenth century, the British government was quite upset about the number of working-class people who were reading political literature. The government, writes West, took ‘fiscal and legal action against the spread of newspapers, especially those critical of government.’