"Freedom is not entitlement."

"This is because we believe in freedom. ...

"Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs ha[d] in [1990s] Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered.

"It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."

~ PJ O'Rourke from his 1993 'Liberty Manifesto'

RELATED:

• Cue Card Libertarianism: Rights - NOT PC 

The open society is the successful society

"The most secure and prosperous societies did not hide from the world. They were confident enough to remain open to trade and ideas, allowing the new to challenge the known. Progress emerges when people experiment, borrow, and combine ideas in ways no planner could ever foresee; decline happens when fear overcomes curiosity."

~ Johan Norberg from his article 'From Athens to the Abbasids to today’s Anglosphere, creativity and commerce drive greatness.' in which he explores the central lessons of history’s real golden ages in his new book, Peak Human: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages.

"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

“Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it does this task so well. It gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

~ Milton Friedman from his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom

REMINDER: "Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from the coercive power of the state—and nothing else."

 

"Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state—and nothing else." 

~ Ayn Rand, from her essay 'Conservatism: An Obituary,' collected in her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. [See also 'Cue Card Libertarianism: Freedom']