Isabel Paterson
Isabel Paterson
Isabel Patersonwas a Canadian-American journalist, novelist, political philosopher, and a leading literary and cultural critic of her day. Along with Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand, who both acknowledged an intellectual debt to Paterson, she is one of the three founding mothers of American libertarianism. Paterson's best-known work, her 1943 book The God of the Machine, a treatise on political philosophy, economics, and history, reached conclusions and espoused beliefs that many libertarians credit as a foundation of their philosophy. Her...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth22 January 1886
CountryCanada
If you hear some bad collectivistic notions, chances are that they came from [modern] liberals. But if you hear or read something outrageously, god-awfully collectivistic, you may be sure that the author is a conservative.
There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than is required to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure.
The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action.
The philanthropist, the politician, and the pimp are inevitably found in alliance because they have the same motives, they seek the same ends, to exist for, through, and by others.
The biggest pests are the people who use altruism as an alibi. What they passionately wish is to make themselves important.
Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.
Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you or pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?
Every politically controlled educational system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy sooner or later. . . . Once that doctrine has been accepted, it becomes an almost superhuman task to break the stranglehold of the political power over the life of the citizen. It has had his body, property and mind in its clutches from infancy. An octopus would sooner release its prey. A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.
A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.