The Hammock Papers: Friedman

Showing posts with label Friedman. Show all posts

25 May 2026

Kinky Friedman, "A Dog Named Freedom"

If you want to thank a veteran, be an American worth fighting for ...

02 April 2026

Means.

Milton Friedman, from Capitalism and Freedom

08 February 2026

Accordance.

Steve points to the Friedmans on the concentration of power ...

We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else. We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good purposes.

Fortunately, we are waking up. We are again recognizing the dangers of an overgoverned society, coming to understand that good objectives can be perverted by bad means, that reliance on the freedom of people to control their own lives in accordance with their own values is the surest way to achieve the full potential of a great society.

11 August 2025

Free.

Milton Friedman, from Capitalism and Freedom

05 April 2025

Kinky Friedman, "Sold American"

It's sandwich time. May the God of your choice bless you ...

27 March 2025

15 March 2025

Kinky Friedman, "The Bridge that Wouldn't Burn"

May the God of your choice bless you.

It's sandwich time.

Kinky Friedman, "Carrying the Torch"

Did I hear you say you wished that you could leave her?

Has some foolish disagreement made you blind?

If you traveled around this world, you wouldn't find another girl

Could hold the candle to the gal you left behind

And boy, she's carrying the torch for you

Though solid tears may fall, you'd never know

But on the day that you discover how much you really love her

You'll find her love has never lost its glow

She believed you when you pledged her your devotion

When she watched you as you walked right out the door

After all that she's been through, tonight she still believes in you

As she stands there all alone upon the shore

And boy, she's carrying the torch for you

Though her heart may break, you'd never know

But on the day that you discover how much you really love her

You'll find her love has never lost its glow

You know, I still remember the first time I ever saw her

You see, I was coming home from overseas

And well, she was just standing there as the ship was coming in

Well, she really stood out from the crowd, I can tell you that

And the golden light of dawn was gleaming in her eyes

Well, there's some folks that call her proud

And there's some folks that call her wild

And there's some that even go so far as to call her free

And then there's some

Well, they just call her the Statue of Liberty

And boy, she's carrying the torch for you

Her love light shines for all this world to see

When you'll decide to stay, you'll find a way to love her

She wants you just to know you're always free

Please note that playing drums with American flag drumsticks is against the United States Flag Code and may the God of your choice bless you.

20 February 2025

Kinky Friedman, "The Poet of the Motel Six"

31 July 2023

Happy Birthday, Friedman

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.

Milton Friedman, born on this day in 1913, from Capitalism and Freedom

30 December 2016

To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served. He recognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve. He recognizes no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive.

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?

Milton Friedman

CONNECT

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL