James Bovard
James Bovard
James Bovardis a libertarian author and lecturer whose political commentary targets examples of waste, failures, corruption, cronyism and abuses of power in government. He is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy, and eight other books. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader's Digest, The American Conservative, and many other publications. His books have been translated into Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and Korean...
ProfessionAuthor
moving government average
To blindly trust government is to automatically vest it with excessive power. To distrust government is simply to trust humanity - to trust in the ability of average people to peacefully, productively coexist without some official policing their every move. The State is merely another human institution - less creative than Microsoft, less reliable than Federal Express, less responsible than the average farmer husbanding his land, and less prudent than the average citizen spending his own paycheck.
dark night average
For the average person walking down a dark street late at night, a promise from a politician is worth far less than a .38 Special.
people age president
Entire generations of Americans have come of age since the ancient time when the president's power was constrained by a duty of candor to the American people.
lying responsibility fog
I was amazed at how easy it was for the Clinton Administration to basically cover what they did at Waco in the fog of lies and avoid any responsibility for it.
favors administration conservative
It has been surprising to me that so few conservatives have voiced concern over the precedence that are being set in favor of suppression by this so-called conservative administration.
party rights air
Some politicians are aware of the Bill of Rights. It seems that the opposition party is far more likely to invoke it, to wave it in the air, this is what we saw from a lot of republicans during the Clinton Administration, and we are seeing the same from Democrats under Bush.
government law numbers
However accurate or inaccurate the agency's numbers may be, tax law explicitly presumes that the IRS is always right -- and implicitly presumes that the taxpayer is always wrong -- in any dispute with the government. In many cases, the IRS introduces no evidence whatsoever of its charges; it merely asserts that a taxpayer had a certain amount of unreported income and therefore owes a proportionate amount in taxes, plus interest and penalties.
numbers odds government
Not only has the number of government employees multiplied in recent decades, but the rise of government unions further stacks the political odds against private citizens.
government expansion moral
Once a person becomes a government dependent, his moral standing to resist the expansion of government power is fatally compromised.
keys offering voters
The key question for many voters is: How much is the candidate offering for my vote?
law people democracy
Rather than a democracy, we increasingly have an elective dictatorship. People are merely permitted to choose who will violate the laws and the Constitution.
government numbers democracy
American democracy is capsizing as a result of the vast increase in the number of government dependents and government employees.
government imagination political
Governments and citizens blend together only in the imaginations of political theorists. Government is, and always will be, an alien power over private citizens. There is no magic in a ballot box that makes government any less coercive.
opportunity rights government
Americans' liberty is perishing beneath the constant growth of government power. Federal, state and local government's are confiscating citizens' property, trampling their rights, and decimating their opportunities more than ever before.... American liberty can still be rescued from the encroachments of government. The first step to saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it, and how we will continue to lose unless fundamental political changes occur.