Tom G. Palmer

To repeat, communitarians maintain that we are constituted as persons by our particular obligations, and therefore those obligations cannot be a matter…

— Tom G. Palmer

Guardians are necessary for children and abnormal adults, because they cannot make responsible choices for themselves.

— Tom G. Palmer

But there is no obvious reason for holding that some normal adults are entitled to make choices for other normal adults, as…

— Tom G. Palmer

Libertarians typically argue that particular obligations, at least under normal circumstances, must be created by consent; they cannot be unilaterally imposed by…

— Tom G. Palmer

It is obvious that different individuals require different things to live good, healthy, and virtuous lives.

— Tom G. Palmer

Equality of rights means that some people cannot simply impose obligations on others, for the moral agency and rights of those others…

— Tom G. Palmer

What libertarians assert is simply that differences among normal adults do not imply different fundamental rights.

— Tom G. Palmer

The first census in 1790 asked just six questions: the name of the head of the household, the number of free white…

— Tom G. Palmer

[L]et me point out that libertarians defend a tradition of liberty that is the fruit of thousands of years of human history.

— Tom G. Palmer

Libertarians recognize the inevitable pluralism of the modern world and for that reason assert that individual liberty is at least part of…

— Tom G. Palmer

At George Mason University I saw Hoppe present a lecture in which he claimed that Ludwig von Mises had set the intellectual…

— Tom G. Palmer

Libertarians recognize the difference between adults and children, as well as differences between normal adults and adults who are insane or mentally…

— Tom G. Palmer

Group personification obscures, rather than illuminates, important political questions.

— Tom G. Palmer

Obviously, all of us have been influenced by those around us.

— Tom G. Palmer

The reason the government sells the census as your ticket to getting goodies - rather than as your civic duty - is…

— Tom G. Palmer

If an individual is born with the obligation to obey, who is born with the right to command?

— Tom G. Palmer

Abstraction is a mental process we use when trying to discern what is essential or relevant to a problem; it does not…

— Tom G. Palmer

The government has become a mechanism for distributing largess, and your census form is your ticket.

— Tom G. Palmer

Young people today are being robbed. Of their rights. Of their freedom. Of their dignity. Of their futures. The culprits? My generation…

— Tom G. Palmer

Libertarians argue that no normal adult has the right to impose choices on other normal adults, except in abnormal circumstances, such as…

— Tom G. Palmer

Most Europeans have no idea how wild life can be in north America.

— Tom G. Palmer

Obligations may be universal or particular.

— Tom G. Palmer

It is precisely because neither individuals nor small groups can be fully self-sufficient that cooperation is necessary to human survival and flourishing.

— Tom G. Palmer