United States of America

It's a shame how few modern Americans really understand how our country was founded on a radical experiment in strictly limited government. Steeped in the transformative philosophies of freedom, reason, and science that flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Founding Fathers sought to create a completely new relationship between people and government, whereby sovereignty rested with the individual, whose rights where inviolable.

— Peter Schiff; How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes

In the early days after the War of Independence, in exchange for the establishment of a national government, which many Americans did not want, the U.S. Constitution was conceived as a masterfully designed cage that would prevent the "beast" of government from running amok. The Constitution not only protected people from government, but it also protected minorities from the tyrannies of majorities.

The Constitution deliberately sought to segment powers in the different branches of the federal government to decentralize authority into the many states, and most importantly to prevent the federal government from taking any power it decided to take.

The result was a nation where individuals could be secure in their personal liberty and possessions, and who were not prevented from disposing of their assets in any way they saw fit. The fact that these rights, unfortunately, did not apply to all inhabitants of the new country, does not diminish the audacity of the idea, which had never previously been codified in any other country.

— Peter Schiff; How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes

With more than 50 percent of our government debt currently sold to foreign governments, who will pick up the slack when they stop buying? With very little domestic savings to tap into, Americans alone won't be able to do it.

When that day comes, we will have two choices: default or inflation. Both options will violently force American living standards downward through lost purchasing power and higher interest rates.

— Peter Schiff; How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes

One of the reasons for the growth and prosperity of the United States has been the fact that we have enjoyed one money throughout the large area of the country. We have had a gold or at least a single dollar standard within the entire country, and did not have to suffer the chaos of each city and county issuing its own money which would then fluctuate with respect to the moneys of all the other cities and counties.

— Murray Rothbard; What Has Government Done to Our Money?

It has been estimated that a thousand years passed before the standard of living in Europe rose again to the level it had achieved in Roman times. The collapse of civilization is not just the replacement of rulers or institutions with new rulers and new institutions. It is the destruction of a whole way of life and the painful, and sometimes pathetic, attempts to begin rebuilding amid the ruins.

Is that where America is headed? I believe it is. Our only saving grace is that we are not there yet—and that nothing is inevitable until it happens.

— Thomas Sowell; Dismantling America

Ironically, the United States is moving in the direction of the kind of economy that China has been forced to move away from. China once had complete government control of medical care, but eventually gave it up as the disaster that it was.

— Thomas Sowell; Dismantling America

There is nothing automatic about the way of life achieved in this country. It is very unusual among the nations of the world today and rarer than four-leaf clovers in the long view of history.

It didn't just happen. People made it happen — and they and those who came after them paid a price in blood and treasure to create and preserve this nation that we now take for granted.

— Thomas Sowell; Dismantling America

Our national motto, "E Pluribus Unum" — from many, one — has been turned upside down as educators, activists and politicians strive to fragment the American population into separate racial, social, linguistic and ideological blocs.

— Thomas Sowell; Dismantling America

The average American today has a standard of living that includes things that only the upper crust could have afforded in times past -- and some things that even the rich didn't have in past generations, like personal computers.

But are the people who made that possible even mentioned, much less publicized and praised?

There is not an inventor, scientist, medical researcher, or industrialist who is as well known as loudmouths like Rosie O'Donnell or Jesse Jackson.

Any bimbo who exposes her body can get more attention than someone who finds ways to reduce the cost of housing for millions of people.

In California, the bimbo can get favorable attention while the developer is condemned.

In short, the problem is not that particular people do particular things to get attention. The problem is that the society at large no longer has standards by which to deny or rebuke attention-seekers who have nothing to contribute to society.

Do not expect sound judgments in a society where being "non-judgmental" is an exalted value. As someone has said, if you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.

— Thomas Sowell; Dismantling America

As we will see, the fact is that true capitalism - that is, capitalism absent excessive government regulation and taxation - has not existed to any significant degree in America in many, many years.

— Thomas DiLorenzo; How Capitalism Saved America