A government is no more powerful than the human resources, the skills, the knowledge, and attitudes of obedience it commands. Every dollar the state spends has been taken from an individual. It has no resources of its own. Every law it maintains is enforced by an individual. That advantage is what we call the sanction of the victim or the consent which the oppressed must give to their oppressors.
Libertarianism is a direct attack upon the mystique of the state.
It recognizes that the state is only an abstraction and reduces it to the actions of individuals. It applies the same standard of morality to the state as it would to a next-door neighbor. If it is not proper for a neighbor to tax or pass laws regulating your private life, then it cannot be proper for the state to do so. Only by elevating itself above the standards of personal morality can the state make these claims on your life. . . . Conservatives and liberals demand different varieties of law and order without regard to the fact that the ultimate in order may be found in a concentration camp.