Joseph Sobran
Joseph Sobran
Michael Joseph Sobran, Jr., known as Joe Sobran, was an American journalist, formerly with National Review magazine and a syndicated columnist. Pat Buchanan called Sobran "perhaps the finest columnist of our generation"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth23 February 1946
CountryUnited States of America
hypocrite men enemy
The hypocrite recognizes the honest man as his deadly enemy.
differences hands political
The difference between a politician and a pickpocket is that a pickpocket doesn't always get indignant when you tell him to keep his hands to himself.
people liberty libertarian
We have been living amidst one of the great revolutions of human history, and we hardly know it: the penetration of the State into every aspect of human life and society. Some people regard this as good and "progressive," others regard it as tyrannical; but either way, it's a fact, a transformation as great as, say, the Industrial Revolution. Absolutely nothing is now beyond the scope of State power.
anarchy states ifs
Even if we are all doomed to live under the state, it doesn't follow that there is, or even can be, such a thing as a good state.
idols evil anarchy
Thus does a 'necessary evil' become an idol. Maybe we're stuck with it. But do we have to worship it?
exercise government limits
Altering the Constitution has become the daily business of the Federal Government which the document is supposed to guide and limit. Both Congress and the judiciary assume, and exercise, countless powers they aren't entitled to.
men numbers members
Man is the only creature disposed to kill huge numbers of members of his own species, and his instrument is usually the state.
blessing reality government
What a blessing 'terrorism' is for the state! It's the ideal distraction from the day-to-day reality of the state's chief activity: wringing from its subjects the wealth they produce. Last September (2001) a handful of fanatics, armed only with box-cutters, provided a new rationale for the trillion -dollar swindle. A bonanza! I don't know what these 'terrorists' thought they were achieving: Making the infidel respect Allah? If so, they were wrong. You might as well try to make the U.S. government respect the U.S. Constitution.
dream lying giving
Nothing annoys a 'progressive' like refugees from Communism, who give the lie to the Great Socialist Dream.
erosion together expansion
Wartime always brings expansions of state power, together with erosions of moral and constitutional standards.
liberty program unconstitutional
Anything called a "program" is unconstitutional.
tyrants government may
Tyranny seldom announces itself...In fact, a tyranny may exist without an individual tyrant. A whole government, even a democratically elected one, may be tyrannical.
tyrants abuse limits
There has never been a humane communist regime. Marxism is inherently totalitarian. It recognizes no moral limits on the state. It’s the most convenient ideology for aspiring tyrants; it also retains its appeal for intellectuals, who have proved equally skillful at rationalizing abuses of power and at exculpating themselves.
government judicial-review favors
Not surprisingly, the federal judiciary nearly always rules in favor of the federal government. Judicial review, contrary to the assurances of its advocates, has hardly restrained Congress at all. Instead it has progressively stripped the states of their traditional powers, while allowing federal power to grow unchecked.