"The
free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do
for his country. He will ask rather "What can I and my compatriots do
through government" to help us discharge our individual responsibilities,
to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our
freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the
government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very
freedom we establish it to protect?
Freedom
is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the
great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary
to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our
freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to
freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and
even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will
both attract and form men of a different stamp."
Economist
Milton Friedman in "Capitalism and Freedom" (1962)
How do we keep the Federal Government from becoming all powerful?
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