Politics & Power Quote by Harry Browne

Libertarianism’s sharpest move is turning a feel-good promise into a procedural threat, and Harry Browne does it here with a single pivot: you don’t hand over “the power to do good” without also licensing its darker twin. The line works because it refuses to argue policy-by-policy. It argues architecture. Browne isn’t disputing anyone’s motives; he’s disputing the wisdom of building a machine that can be steered by whoever wins next.

The subtext is an attack on sentimental politics: the idea that if a program is compassionate, it’s therefore safe. Browne treats power as morally indifferent and politically portable. Today’s benevolent bureaucracy becomes tomorrow’s weaponized bureaucracy, because the same tools that can subsidize, regulate, surveil, or censor “for your benefit” can be redeployed under a different slogan. His “in fact” tightens the screw, implying that once you accept the premise that ends justify expanded means, there’s no principled stopping point. “Anything it wants” is deliberately absolute - not a forecast of constant tyranny, but a reminder that capability outlives intention.

Context matters: Browne came of age in the long shadow of the New Deal state, the Cold War’s national security apparatus, and the post-1960s expansion of federal reach. He also ran for president as a Libertarian, so this isn’t armchair skepticism; it’s campaign-grade persuasion. The rhetorical trick is moral judo: it borrows your desire for good outcomes, then asks whether your preferred instrument is safe in the hands of your least preferred rulers.