Adam Kokesh > Quotes

“Statism is the ideology of turning to organized force to solve problems better solved through peaceful persuasion.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“While the term “police state” may apply to varying degrees, and some government apologists will always declare the amount of control to be insignificant, any organized violent control is just as wrong as a “total police state.” Subjecting people to systematic violence traumatizes them and helps keep them submissive. Do not give in! There are many important ways to fight the police state to improve our communities, but until we defeat statism, it will always be there, and even the slightest degree of a police state is too much.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Theft is when someone takes something that doesn’t belong to them. Either governments own “their people” as slaves, or taxation is theft. You own yourself. Therefore, taxation is theft. Because you own your body, your labor, and what you acquire by trade, taxation is theft.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Licensing sounds good because we all want reliable services and qualified people, but that’s why it’s unnecessary. There’s nothing wrong with a group saying that if you don’t meet their standards, they won’t certify you – but when the governments do that, not only is it funded by taxation, it comes with the threat of force.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“None of the propaganda around war can disguise its true nature. It is massive organized violence for the purpose of expanding government power. It is the height of statism and it is the greatest affront to freedom.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“The great tragedy of war is the deception behind it. Yes, it’s quite tragic when someone is murdered, but it is far more tragic when mass murder is so clearly preventable. War is the height of statism and the greatest crime against freedom. It is only possible because individuals are willing to commit horrific acts when doing a government’s bidding.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Governments are not protection, they are protection rackets. National security is an excuse to defend exclusive taxation authority in their territory. Governments protect us like a rancher defends cattle. At home as abroad, governments use violence to expand their power.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“When governments take over education, young minds suffer. The exploitation of the education racket is particularly vicious because to miseducate or under-educate a child is to cripple their future. Young minds naturally absorb information and seek the skills most essential to their happiness and prosperity. Threatening young people with consequences to ensure obedience stifles free-thinking and teaches the way of government: to accept rule by force.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Statism is the dominant paradigm today because most of us are in denial or ignorant of its true nature.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Trusting governments to “fight terror” invites massive corruption. If we ask someone to fight imaginary demons for us and decide how much it will cost, we will soon find ourselves in a world full of demons that are very expensive to fight.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Governments use propaganda to create support for a wide array of policies that any free-thinking society would never tolerate.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Anything less than self-ownership is slavery. All concepts of rights come from self-ownership. Your self-ownership is the acknowledgement by others of your right to control yourself. If you do not assert control over something of value, someone else will. Without the assertion of self-ownership, there is no freedom.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Taxation is an inescapable part of the government racket. If governments never stole, they would cease to be governments. If we could withdraw our financial support from them at any time, they would be voluntary cooperatives, or service providers. Because taxation is backed up with the threat of force, it is theft, plain and simple.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Governments are especially adept at using propaganda to induce fear among citizens to control their behavior. When people are frightened enough, they turn to governments for protection. Because we all fear the judgement of others to some degree, governments also use propaganda to manipulate our perception of the expectations of others. If propaganda creates the impression that all the other citizens expect us to be obedient, our default position will be obedience, and that can only be overcome with careful, rational analysis. Any time someone trying to control us can fill our heads with emotions, they can keep us from thinking clearly and lead us to believe in whatever bad ideas advance their agenda.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“The great illusion of the current paradigm of statism is that governments achieve a worthwhile reduction of violence. Governments are the greatest cause of violence in the world today. They are coercive monopolies with only an illusion of public support. Everything they do is based on a presumed right to point guns at people who are acting peacefully.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“It is not right for one person to steal. It is not right for two people to steal. It is still not right for 51% of a voting population to vote for a representative who will hire a tax collector to steal for them. One of the great government lies is that theft can be moral when performed by enough people and called taxation.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“When foreign aid is disbursed based on where there is terrorism, starvation, or disease, it ends up subsidizing terrorism, starvation, and disease.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“To make a society support the crazy ideas behind war, governments need to instill an intense sense of collective identity, which is in itself an affront to freedom.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Government is control. Government is exploitation. Government is a protection racket. Government is disorder, violence, and conflict! Government is an idea “so good” that it has to be forced on us. Government is a group of people claiming a monopoly on the initiation of force in a specific territory. Government is the institutionalization of our worst desires to control, dominate, and take advantage of others by force. Governments reflect our tolerance for oppression, and all we need to do to defeat them is demand self-government.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“When a tax is imposed on a population, it means a large chunk of the wealth is no longer allowed to serve the needs of the people who earned it, but rather the needs of government.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Patriotism is proof that a patriot isn’t free.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“For the paradigm shift to occur, it has to be embraced by a critical mass of people. We are rapidly approaching the tipping point at which statism will be untenable, not just because the institutions are unsustainable, but because we are rising up and demanding our rights.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“The history of government has been defined by two arcs: the development of our capacity to tolerate theft, and our awareness that we deserve to live without being robbed.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Freedom is the ability to exercise your will within your rights without the threat of force from anyone else.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Democracy is not freedom. When fully living up to its ideal, democracy is at best a majority coming up with an excuse to impose its will on a minority.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Government courts often refer to themselves as part of a “justice system,” but more importantly, they are punishment systems. It’s absurd to think any part of an institution based on theft and violence could provide justice, but many people still seem to believe this.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“The greatest tragedy of government courts is that when someone is wronged, if the perpetrator is caught and punished, the victim is punished again as a taxpayer, rather than compensated.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“Given that it is our destiny to achieve a voluntary society, there are only two ways statism can end: a violent collapse or a peaceful transition. Current government systems are clearly unsustainable. If we do not start paying attention and facing up to our problems, we are headed for sudden failures of the very systems that many of us depend on.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“The way most of us understand freedom and happiness is backwards. Happiness is not the result of freedom. Happiness causes freedom! Do we need freedom to be happy? Most certainly not! Happiness is not pursued, captured, beaten over the head with a club, and hauled home to be enjoyed for ever and ever!”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!

“We deserve self-rule. We deserve to be in charge of our own lives. No one has the right to control others by force, even if they claim to have the majority behind them.”
― Adam Kokesh, Freedom!