David Harsanyi > Quotes

“If saving lives is the only reason we have laws, then we’ll never have enough.”
― David Harsanyi, Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning America into a Nation of Children

“Until genuine political, economic, and cultural liberty are established, democracy is unlikely to offer anything more than a simulacrum of legitimacy for an oppressive regime.”
― David Harsanyi, The People Have Spoken (and They Are Wrong): The Case Against Democracy

“The realization that you can't predict the future -- and mold it -- could only come as a shock to an academic.”
― David Harsanyi

“The men who founded our Republic did not aspire to emulate Europeans at all—to the contrary, the project of drafting the American Constitution was largely about ensuring that the American people would never languish under the yoke of a European-style government. —Antonin Scalia1”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“Europe’s culture is deeply inhospitable to entrepreneurs” and that”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“According to the Council of Somalis, for example, 90 percent of Somalis in the London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea are now unemployed.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“European culture values stability over success, security over invention, and leisure time over work.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“There is no reason to turn to Europe for advice on tolerance, on racism, or on assimilation.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“In Amsterdam, a city with a growing immigrant population, there has been an explosion of drugs, crime, and violence.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“the nation isn’t as right-wing as the Tea Party or as liberal as the self-styled standard bearers of the rational center, the modern-day Democratic Party. Americans support offshore drilling (81 percent), ending affirmative action in hiring and education (57 percent), and limiting abortion in the third trimester. Only one in four Americans supports reforms that offer a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. We should therefore conclude that the major political party representing the right has been profoundly incompetent.”
― David Harsanyi, The People Have Spoken (and They Are Wrong): The Case Against Democracy

“The contrast between the founding documents of the United States and the European Union illustrates just how different, both functionally and philosophically, the projects have been.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“Whereas Sweden barely experienced any immigration in the middle of the twentieth century, today the nation of 9 million is home to 1.5 million immigrants and their”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“Nearly 60 percent of Europeans would prefer to work as an employee rather than take on the risk of starting their own business.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“When this fact was brought up to Tor-Aksel Busch, Norway’s director of public prosecutions, he explained that while the comments by the Muslim rapper “seem to be targeting Jews” they can also be looked at as a way to “express dissatisfaction with the policies of the State of Israel.”57 I suppose Norwegian Jews should be relieved that no one was firebombed.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“European society has been rife with intolerance and bigotry of all kinds—open and implicit. It is unsurprising, as Europeans have deeply ingrained disdain for one another, be it culturally, religiously, ethnically, or racially. For centuries the French and Germans, Italians and Austrians, English and French, Russians and Germans could hardly live next to”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“At the time of his outburst there were only 789 Jews left in Norway.55 The court found that Kholardi’s “remarks were demeaning, untruthful and offensive, but they are not breaching the law.” This is a fine outcome if you, like me, believe that hate speech laws undermine an inherent and neutral right to free expression. But in Norway people do not. It is still illegal to “deliberately or grossly negligently publicly present a discriminatory or hateful expression,” and it “shall be punished”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“In Islamic enclaves in Norway, for instance, young girls imported for marriage are, as one researcher called them, “living visas,” and the situation they find themselves in “a new form of human commerce.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“The EU is a colossal, yet wholly insipid, bureaucratic arrangement.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“Welfare incentivizes people to work less.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“When Sweden opened its country up to Kurds, Bosnians, and Somalis in the 1990s, they placed the newcomers in abandoned public housing units, immediately insulating them from the rest of the community.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“Without sulfur and saltpeter . . . there can be no freedom.”
― David Harsanyi, First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History with the Gun

“Democracy is just a process that reflects the morals and ethics of the people who vote. It doesn't guarantee you freedom—just check out the Gaza Strip or Egypt or anywhere else.”
― David Harsanyi

“Nearly 90 percent of Muslims said they are proud to be American and still have faith in the American Dream.20”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“Europe’s deficient work habits, conversely, are incentivized by generous social nets, powerful unions, and onerous labor laws that disincentivize initiative.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“Conversely, the shared ideal and heritage of Americans—the thing that unifies them—is the liberty,”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“It is a strange contradiction of American life that one could be horrified and yet consumed with the life of violent men.”
― David Harsanyi, First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History with the Gun

“The Europhiles who demand an open door for all the world’s refugees happen to advocate for policies that disincentivize work, initiative, and thus acclimatization, undercutting the dynamics that make assimilation work.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“Nearly 75 percent of Americans still say they believe hard work leads to success, as opposed to only 35 percent of Europeans.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority

“Not long after the Bergisch incident, in Norway the state attorney dismissed a case against a rapper named Kaveh Kholardi, who had been hired by the city of Oslo to perform at a family festival to celebrate “diversity and inclusion.” During his performance, Kholardi asked if there were any Jews in the audience, before going on a rant about the “f***ing Jews.” A few days earlier, the rapper had tweeted that the “f***ing Jews are so corrupt.”
― David Harsanyi, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent – An Unapologetic Polemic on Economic and Cultural Superiority