COLLECTIVISM

"COLLECTIVISM: Collectivism is defined as the theory and practice that makes some sort of group rather than the individual
the fundamental unit of political, social, and economic concern. In theory, collectivists insist that the claims of groups,
associations, or the state must normally supersede the claims of individuals." -- Stephen Grabill and Gregory M. A. Gronbacher,
HERE
"collectivism ... treats society as if it were a super-organism existing over and above its individual members, and which takes the
collective in some form (e.g., tribe, race, or state) to be the primary unit of reality and standard of value." -- Prof. Fred D. Miller
HERE "Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group -- whether to a race, class or state does not matter.
Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called 'the
common good'." -- Ayn Rand, HERE
"Collectivism is a form of anthropomorphism. It attempts to see a group of individuals as having a single identity similar to a
person. ... Collectivism demands that the group be more important than the individual. It requires the individual to sacrifice
himself for the alleged good of the group." -- Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands HERE
"Collectivism requires self-sacrifice, the subordination of one's interests to those of others." -- Ayn Rand, Letters of Ayn Rand
"Collectivism, unlike individualism, holds the group as the primary, and the standard of moral value." -- Mark Da Cunha HERE
"G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), and Karl Marx (1818-83) ... both viewed political phenomena as the inevitable result of historical
processes, and regarded collectives as of greater reality and value than their individual members." -- Prof. Fred D. Miller HERE
"collectivist ethical principle: man is not an end to himself, but is only a tool to serve the ends of others. Whether those 'others'
are a dictator's gang, the nation, society, the race, (the) god(s), the majority, the community, the tribe, etc., is irrelevant -- the
point is that man in principle must be sacrificed to others." -- Mark Da Cunha HERE
"Collectivism is the political theory that states that the will of the people is omnipotent, an individual must obey; that society as a
whole, not the individual, is the unit of moral value. ... Collectivism is the application of the altruist ethics to politics." -- Dr.
Andrew Bernstein, HERE "The antipode of individualism is collectivism, which subordinates the individual to the group -be it the 'community,' the tribe, the race, the proletariat, etc. A person's moral worth is judged by how much he sacrifices himself
to the group. [Under collectivism] the more emergencies (and victims) the better, because they provide more opportunity for
'virtue'." -- Glenn Woiceshyn
"Collectivism is the doctrine that the social collective -- called society, the people, the state, etc. -- has rights, needs, or moral
authority above and apart from the individuals who comprise it. We hear this idea continually championed in such familiar
platitudes as 'the needs of the people take precedence over the rights of the individual,' 'production for people, not profits,' and
'the common good.'
"Collectivism often sounds humane because it stresses the importance of human needs. In reality, it is
little more than a rationalization for sacrificing you and me to the desires of others." -- Jarret B. Wollstein in The Causes of
Aggression, HERE
"Don't forget that pure democracy is a form of collectivism -- it readily sacrifices individual rights to majority wishes. Since it
involves no constitutional bill of rights, or at least, no working and effective one, the majority-of-the-moment can and does vote
away the rights of the minority-of-the-moment, even of a single individual. This has been called 'mob rule,' the 'tyranny of the
majority' and many other pejorative names. It is one of the greatest threats to liberty, the reason why America's founding fathers
wrote so much so disparagingly of pure democracy." -- Bert Rand "A social system is a code of laws which men observe
in order to live together. Such a code must have a basic principle, a starting point, or it cannot be devised. The starting point is
the question: Is the power of society limited or unlimited? "Individualism answers: The power of society is limited by the
inalienable, individual rights of man. Society may make only such laws as do not violate these rights. "Collectivism answers:
The power of society is unlimited. Society may make any laws it wishes, and force them upon anyone in any manner it wishes." - Ayn Rand, Textbook of Americanism, HERE
"Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political
significance to a man's genetic lineage -- the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and
transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and
actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors. [...] When men began to be indoctrinated once more with
the notion that the individual possesses no rights, that supremacy, moral authority and unlimited power belong to the group, and
that a man has no significance outside his group -- the inevitable consequence was that men began to gravitate toward some
group or another, in self-protection, in bewilderment and in subconscious terror. The simplest collective to join, the easiest one
to identify -- particularly for people of limited intelligence -- the least demanding form of "belonging" and of "togetherness" is:
race. [...] It is thus that the theoreticians of collectivism, the 'humanitarian' advocates of a 'benevolent' absolute state ... led to the
rebirth and the new, virulent growth of racism in the 20th century." -- Ayn Rand in "Racism", HERE
"The core of racism is the notion that the individual is meaningless and that membership in the collective -- the race -- is the
source of his identity and value. ... The notion of 'diversity' entails exactly the same premises as racism -- that one's ideas are
determined by one's race and that the source of an individual's identity is his ethnic heritage." -- Peter Schwartz in "The Racism
of 'Diversity'," HERE
"Primitive communism ... once existed among all peoples and still survives in many uncivilized countries. All production in this
stage of society is under the direction of chiefs or councils of elders. No individual responsibility exists." -- George Winder,
HERE
Statism
"Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the
state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a
doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force -- and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism." -- Ayn
Rand, HERE
"STATISM is that particular form of collectivism in which individuals are forced to be subservient to government (as
distinguished, if possible, from a religious or cult leader, roving invader or local gangster). Anyone in government who wants to
extend his power, or anyone else (who has political influence) with agendas to advance, monopolies to secure, axes to grind or

revenge to take -- can make claims that certain governmental actions would be in the national, state, society or even family
interest and must 'therefore' take precedence over any individual interests whatsoever. With this 'justification' the people in
government can proceed to enforce such claims, often enthusiastically, sometimes brutally, but always with impunity." -- Rick
Gaber
"The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When
practiced by a government, it is called statism ..." -- Nathaniel Branden, HERE
Relevant Comments
"Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery. ... Collectivism is not the 'New Order of Tomorrow.' It is the order of a very
dark yesterday." -- Ayn Rand
"Altruism demands that an individual serve others, but doesnt stipulate whether those others should be ones family, or the
homeless, or society as a whole. Collectivism states that, in politics, society comes first and the individual must
obey. Collectivism is the application of the altruist ethics to politics." -- Dr. Andrew Bernstein, HERE [emphasis added - ed.]
"... So here we get the two essentials of Nazism: the rejection of reason and the mind in favor of the worship of brute emotion,
and the elevation of the collective over the individual. What, then, distinguishes the ideas of the modern intellectuals from the
philosophy of the Nazis? The addition of an altruist twist. The Nazis were certainly pro-self-sacrifice, because they advocated
(and enforced) the sacrifice of the individual self to the collective aggrandizement of the race. But the modern intellectuals
declare that they are even more altruistic because they want to sacrifice our own race to other races." -- Robert Tracinski, HERE
"If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that the individual is
sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any) alleged 'good' can
justify it -- there can be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations." -- Ayn Rand, HERE
"Among other grand achievements, F. A. Hayek had a remarkable career pointing out the flaws in collectivism. One of his
keenest insights was that, paradoxically, any collectivist system necessarily depends on one individual (or small group) to make
key social and economic decisions. In contrast, a system based on individualism takes advantage of the aggregate, or 'collective,'
information of the whole society; through his actions each participant contributes his own particular, if incomplete, knowledge
information that could never be tapped by the individual at the head of a collectivist state." -- Sheldon Richman, HERE
"People who are very aware that they have more knowledge than the average person are often very unaware that they do not have
one-tenth of the knowledge of all of the average persons put together. In this situation, for the intelligentsia to impose their
notions on ordinary people is essentially to impose ignorance on knowledge." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell, HERE
"It is collectivism that is the unrealistic expression of utopian belief systems. In its worst form -- the state -- collectivism is the
institutionalized exertion of violence to compel living beings to behave contrary to their natural self-interest inclinations. So
strong are the motivations for individual preferences that the state must resort to attacks upon the very nature of life to satisfy the
ambitions of those who see others as nothing more than resources to be exploited for such ends." -- Butler Shaffer, HERE
"A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him"-- Alexis de
Tocqueville
"Socialism collapsed because it is a policy of unrestrained intervention. It tries to fix what is 'wrong' with the spontaneous, selforganizing phenomenon called capitalism. But, of course, a natural process cannot be 'fixed.' ... Socialism is an ideology.
Capitalism is a natural phenomenon." -- Michael Rothschild in BIONOMICS: Economy as Ecosystem
"Not understanding the process of a spontaneously-ordered economy goes hand-in-hand with not understanding the creation of
resources and wealth." -- Julian Simon
"The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization." -- Mikhail
Gorbachev, June 8, 1990
"The primary goal of collectivism -- of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America -- is to enlarge
governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality. People are to be conscripted into one large
cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a selfaggrandizing government." -- George Will, HERE
"I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If
theres something wrong, pass a law and do something about it." -- Milton Friedman
"People have often been willing to give up personal identity and join into a collective. Historically, that propensity has usually
been very bad news. Collectives tend to be mean, to designate official enemies, to be violent, and to discourage creative, rigorous
thought. Fascists, communists, religious cults, criminal 'families' there has been no end to the varieties of human collectives,
but it seems to me that these examples have quite a lot in common. I wonder if some aspect of human nature evolved in the
context of competing packs. We might be genetically wired to be vulnerable to the lure of the mob." -- Jaron Lanier, HERE
"Collectivism is the real-world manifestation of the subjective, emotion-based feral animal origins of humanity, like some
recurring echo emanating from the primitive reptile brain that physically exists in all of us. It is the antithesis of rational
objectivity, something that no amount of fancy verbiage from Marx or Chomsky or Himmler or Plato or Rousseau can disguise
in their respective paeans to force and unity over intellect and evolution. Collectivism is a fancy word for tribalism. It is a hold
over, an atavistic throw back ..." -- Perry de Havilland, HERE
"Totalitarianism is collectivism. Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group -- whether to a race, class or
state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of
what is called `the common good. Throughout history, no tyrant ever rose to power except on the claim of representing `the
common good. Napoleon `served the common good of France. Hitler [was] `serving the common good of Germany. Horrors
which no man would dare consider for his own selfish sake are perpetrated with a clear conscience by `altruists who justify
themselves by -- the common good." -- Ayn Rand, HERE
"But I want you to LOVE ME!!!!" -- Franz-Josef, Emperor of Austria-Hungary, as he screamed at a subject while having him
horsewhipped.
"Statism the subordination of the individual to the state -- leads inevitably to the most hideous oppression." -- Andrew

Bernstein, HERE
"The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious student
sees in them only one root-idea of a complete conversion of social power into State power." -- Albert Jay Nock "... statism
systematically violates the rights of individuals and is, therefore, immoral. Because it suppresses the mind and violates mens
rights, it thereby causes abysmal poverty and is utterly impractical." -- Andrew Bernstein, HERE "All politicians are
collectivists. They don't care about privacy." -- Professor Ian Angell
"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the
majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary
to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the
Constituents." -- James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1788
"A pure democracy ... can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be
felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party... Hence it is that democracies
have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their
lives as they have been violent in thier deaths." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 10
"Isn't it somewhat remarkable that we can go back a a few hundred years and find no shortage of quotations from our founding
fathers warning us against the dangers of democracy, yet today teachers and politicians use the word as if it were an offering of
gold." -- Neal Boortz
"'Democracy' does not mean freedom." -- Mark Da Cunha
"The issue here is liberty, and democracy is far from a synonym for that." -- Perry de Havilland
"Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner." -- Robert A. Heinlein
"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." -- James Bovard
"Lynch mobs are democracies." -- Neal Boortz
"Our founding fathers detested the idea of a democracy and labored long to prevent America becoming one. Once again -- the
word 'democracy' does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, or the constitution of
any of the fifty states. Not once. Furthermore, take a look at State of the Union speeches. You wont find the 'D' word uttered
once until the Wilson years." -- Neal Boortz, Nov. 7, 2002
"Democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a free society. History has told many stories of democratic societies that have
degenerated into corruption, plunder, and tyranny." -- Richard M. Ebeling
"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic."-- Erik von
Kuehnelt-Leddihn
"I cant think of anything that would do more toward putting us back on the road to liberty and personal responsibility than for
the average American, and for the news media, to come to the understanding that we are not a democracy, nor were we supposed
to be." -- Neal Boortz
"The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government..." -- United States Constitution,
Article IV, Section 4
"The people in the MSM (mainstream media) don't think of themselves as liberal. They're just in favor of collectivism and
against individualism in general -- without using many labels (or much thought) of any kind. They go out of their way only to
mention a minority group if they can. Groupism is what they believe in." -- Rick Gaber
INDIVIDUALISM
"Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept,
individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her
mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy
of individual rights ..." -- Nathaniel Branden HERE
"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the

political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on
earth is the individual)." -- Ayn Rand "Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law." -- Ayn Rand
"The foundation of individualism lies in one's moral right to pursue one's own happiness. This pursuit requires a large amount of
independence, initiative, and self-responsibility.
"But true individualism entails cooperating with others through trade, which
facilitates the pursuit of each party's happiness, and which is carried out not just on the level of goods but on the level of knowledge and
friendship. Trade is essential for life; it provides one with many of the goods and values one needs. Creating an environment where trade
flourishes is of great importance and great interest for the individualist.
"Politically, true individualism means recognizing that one
has a right to his own life and happiness. But it also means uniting with other citizens to preserve and defend the institutions that protect
that right." -- Shawn E. Klein HERE
"INDIVIDUALISM: The term 'individualism' has a great variety of meanings in social and political philosophy. There are at least three
types that can be distinguished: (1) ontological individualism, (2) methodological individualism, and (3) moral or political individualism.
Ontological individualism is the doctrine that social reality consists, ultimately, only of persons who choose and act. Collectives, such as
a social class, state, or a group, cannot act so they are not considered to have a reality independent of the actions of persons.
Methodological individualists hold that the only genuinely scientific propositions in social science are those that can be reduced to the
actions, dispositions, and decisions of individuals. Political or moral individualism is the theory that individuals should be left, as far as
possible, to determine their own futures in economic and moral matters. Key thinkers include Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek,
Milton Friedman, Robert Nozick, John Locke, and Herbert Spencer." -- Stephen Grabill and Gregory M. A. Gronbacher HERE
"Individualism regards man -- every man -- as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a
right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or
peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights -- and that a group, as such,
has no rights other than the individual rights of its members." -- Ayn Rand HERE
Relevant Comments
"This right to life, this right to liberty, and this right to pursue ones happiness is unabashedly individualistic, without in the slightest
denying at the same time our thoroughly social nature. Its only that our social relations, while vital to us all, must be chosen -- that is
what makes the crucial difference." -- Prof. Tibor R. Machan, HERE and HERE
"...individualism is not antithetical to community. Rather, it can involve free association and a belief in an over-arching harmony of
interests. In a free socety, individuals join with others because of love and mutual benefit, not because they are programmed or coerced."
-- Prof. Clifford Thies
"One byproduct of individualism is benevolence -- a general attitude of good will towards one's neighbors and fellow human beings.
Benevolence is impossible in a society where people violate each others' rights." -- Glenn Woiceshyn
"Paradoxical as it may seem, men and women who are free to pursue individualism and material wealth turn out to be the most
compassionate of all." -- Financial Times, London, Nov 22, 2001
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." -- Jefferson et al, The
Declaration of Independence
"The fact that most people think that ... pursuing one's own self-interest equates to behaving brutally or irrationally, is, as Ms. Rand noted,
a 'psychological confession' on their part. In fact it is against one's own long-term self-interest to behave irrationally or trample
others. Such actions are the exact opposite of selfish -- they're self-destructive." -- Wayne Dunn (Emphasis added. Criminals and other
sociopaths do not think in terms of how their actions affect the society around them and set bad examples for others. Nor do they
empathize with others, certainly not their victims. And they certainly don't feel the pride of honest achievement or of helping to build
civilization.)
"Individualism is a concept which the advocates of most political systems try desperately to avoid. They'd prefer that political contests,
debates and symposia were limited to answering loaded questions such as, 'WHICH type of powerful government should we have?',
'WHICH type of dictatorship do you tend to prefer?", 'WHAT KINDS of intrusiveness should government engage in?' and, 'WHICH
type of control freaks are best suited to run your life for you?' ... They often get upset, even hysterical, if you point out that socialism,
fascism, communism and mixed-economy welfare-states have a lot in common.1 They carry on and on as if non-essentials such as
style(!) or WHAT anybody sacrifices individual rights in the name of (the master race, the proletariat, the society, the common good, the
majority, the country, the fatherland, the motherland the brother-in-law-land, the revered leader or savior or god or whatever) is a big
freakin' deal, especially as only in their particular fantasies do they imagine everyone, the enforcers and even their victims, acting forever
polite and cooperative in the sacrifice-extracting rituals (as have many fledgling and would-be dictators, including the incredibly bloody

Pol Pot at first)." -- Rick Gaber "Freedom is an intellectual achievement which requires disavowal of collectivism and embrace of
individualism." -- Onkar Ghate
"The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom." -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
"They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone--the most prehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized
men." -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (Olmstead v. U.S.)
"The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights." -- Erwin N. Griswold
"You have to ask yourself, 'Who owns me? Do I own myself or am I just another piece of government property?' " -- Neal Boortz
"The crucial distinction between systems...was no longer ideological. The main political difference was between those who did, and
those who did not, believe that the citizen could -- or should -- be the property of the state." -- Adam Michnik in Letters to a Young
Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens
"In principle, there are only two fundamental political viewpoints. That is, two contradictory ends of the 'political spectrum.' Those
two principles are freedom and slavery." -- Mark Da Cunha "There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other
men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers." -- Ayn Rand
"A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him." -- Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness
"Collective judgment of new ideas is so often wrong that it is arguable that progress depends on individuals being free to back their own
judgment despite collective disapproval." -- W.A. Lewis
"There is no greater stupidity or meanness than to take uniformity for an ideal.'' -- George Santayana, The Life of Reason
"The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the
foundations of society." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816
"There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob." -- Ayn Rand
"It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each
of them separately." -- Thomas Jefferson
"We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million men cannot morally do, and government, representing many millions of men,
cannot do." -- Auberon Herbert
"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves." -- John Locke
"The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When practiced by
a government, it is called statism ..." -- Nathaniel Branden HERE "Over himself, over his own mind and body, the individual is
sovereign" -- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859), "Introductory"
"The case for a free society rests on individualism. ... Every form of totalitarianism has sought control over the minds of individuals, and
has understood that it must first undermine the individuals confidence in the validity of his own faculties. Remember OBriens speech
to Winston Smith in Orwells 1984 ... " -- David Kelley HERE
"Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men."-- John
Stuart Mill, On Liberty
"It is embarrassing to have to remind people of this in the United States of America. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas
Jefferson singled out three natural rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The last phrase, appearing instead of 'property,' has
prompted much discussion. I cannot say what Jefferson was thinking. But here's a plausible theory: Property is already implicit in liberty.
If you are free, you can use your belongings as you see fit. But by specifying the pursuit of happiness Jefferson might have been pointing
out that the blessing of liberty need not be justified through selfless service to others. One's life and happiness on earth are justification
enough." -- Sheldon Richman
"The right to the pursuit of happiness IS the right to be selfish. You'd think Americans, of all people, would take pride in that, and in

precisely what that really means." -- Rick Gaber

"The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word 'selfishness' is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual 'packagedeal,' which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind." -- Ayn Rand
"The right to the pursuit of happiness means man's right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own, private, personal
happiness and to work for its achievement. Each individual is the sole and final judge in this choice. A man's happiness cannot be
prescribed to him by another man or by any number of other men. ... These rights are the unconditional, personal, private, individual
possession of every man, granted to him by the fact of his birth and requiring no other sanction. Such was the conception of the founders
of our country, who placed individual rights above any and all collective claims." -- Ayn Rand
"America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued
their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes." -- Ayn Rand
"The idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some
individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others." -- Ayn Rand
"America was founded on the principle of inalienable rights, not dictated duties. The Declaration of Independence states that every
human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It does not state that he is born a slave to the needs of others." -- Alex
Epstein
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." -- Ayn
Rand
"Contrary to what leftists want us to believe, individualism does not mean looting others to satisfy one's desires. Nor does it mean
unconcern for others. ...Individualism, not collectivism or altruism, is the root of benevolence and good will among men." -- Glenn
Woiceshyn, HERE
"State-mandated compassion produces, not love for ones fellow man, but hatred and resentment. The breakdown of 'basic civility' and
the rise of the welfare state occur concurrently." -- Lizard
"The Nazis are well remembered for murdering well over 11 million people in the implementation of their slogan, 'The public good
before the private good,' the Chinese Communists for murdering 62 million people in the implementation of theirs, 'Serve the people,' and
the Soviet Communists for murdering more than 60 million people in the implementation of Karl Marx's slogan, 'from each according to
his ability, to each according to his needs.' Anyone who defends any of these, or any variation of them, on the grounds of their 'good
intentions' is an immoral (NOT 'amoral') enabler of the ACTUAL (not just the proverbial) road to hell." -- Rick Gaber
"If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that the individual is sacrificial
fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any) alleged 'good' can justify it -- there can
be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations." -- Ayn Rand, The Roots of War "Comrades! We must abolish the cult of
the individual decisively, once and for all." -- Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev, addressing the 20th Congress of the Soviet
Communist Party, 2-25-56
"The unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual; and that the
higher interests involved in the life of the whole must here set the limits and lay down the duties of the interests of the individual." -Adolph Hitler
"We need to stop worrying about the rights of the individual and start worrying about what is best for society." -- Hillary Clinton
"...we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow men." -- Adolf Hitler, 10-7-33
"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, June 28, 2004.
"To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole." -- Joseph Goebbels, Minister of
Propaganda, National Socialist German Workers' ("Nazi") Party
"What, actually, is the difference between communism and fascism? Both are forms of statism, authoritarianism. The only difference
between Stalins communism and Mussolinis fascism is an insignificant detail in organizational structure." -- Leonard E. Read
"Racism, as a set of beliefs based upon the arbitrary assertion that the content of one's mind and one's character are inherited and
unchangeable, is something I can demonstrate to be complete and total bullspit just from my own personal experience. You see, I

disagree with more than half the teachings of my own parents, and probably 90% of my other ancesters. And I'm a cheerful, friendly
optimist, while the vast majority of them have been cynical, suspicious pessimists. The only people who can consistently claim racism
could be valid are those people who agree with and act like their parents and ancestors 100% of the time, have accepted everything they
believe on blind faith, and have done absolutely no thinking, let alone corroborating, of their own. Who in their right minds would ever
want to take seriously whatever such a pathetic creature has to say anyway?" -- Rick Gaber
"I have often lamented that with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the forces of liberalism did not spend nearly enough time ruthlessly
driving intellectual stakes through the hearts of all those who supported the 'Evil Empire' or preached appeasement or claimed that the
Soviet system was 'just another way of living' rather than a mass murderous tyranny." -- Perry de Havilland
"Most modern intellectuals congratulate themselves for having achieved the allegedly momentus insight that capitalism and altruism are
ultimately incompatible. Yet they're still too damned ignorant to realize, or too damned stubborn to acknowledge, that altruism is
definitely NOT the only moral code available to mankind; it is, in fact, the bloodiest and most regressive one of all. Such stunted
thinking on the part of the intelligentsia has resulted in their committing the intellectual atrocity of rejecting the capitalism and freedom
instead of the altruism and coercion." -- Rick Gaber
"The three values which men held for centuries and which have now collapsed are: mysticism, collectivism, altruism. Mysticism -- as a
cultural power -- died at the time of the Renaissance. Collectivism -- as a political ideal -- died in World War II. As to altruism -- it has
never been alive. It is the poison of death in the blood of Western civilization, and men survived it only to the extent to which they
neither believed nor practiced it. ..." -- Ayn Rand
"[Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of
his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all
dictatorships." -- Ayn Rand
An individualist is a man who says: 'I will not run anyones lifenor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a
master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyonenor sacrifice anyone to myself'. - Ayn Rand
"Republicans don't know how to defend morally an individual's right to achieve wealth and to keep it, and that is why they fail. ... It's part
and parcel with their ambivalence over the individualist heritage of the nation. ... One of the things that people have to understand is that
the American Revolution was truly an epic revolution in the way individuals were perceived in relation to the rest of the
society. Throughout history individuals had always been cogs in some machine; they'd always been something to be sacrified for the
king, the tribe, the gang, the chieftain, the society around them, the race, whatever, and the real revolution, in America especially, was a
moral revolution. It was a moral revolution in that ... suddenly, with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the
individual, his life, his well-being, his property, his happiness became central to our values, and that is what really made America
unique. People came here from all over the world to try to escape the kind of oppression they had and experienced in the past. They came
here for freedom; they came here for self-expression and self-realization, and America offered them that kind of a place." -- Robert
Bidinotto
"Collectivism, as an intellectual power and a moral ideal, is dead. But freedom and individualism, and their political expression,
capitalism, have not yet been discovered." -- Ayn Rand
"It is not as late as you think. It is merely early -- in the age of the rebirth of individualism." -- Ayn Rand