I MAY REBEL AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT IF...... In the United States Senate, one of the things I observed in the early days - and its still used - and that is that you take someones argument and then you misrepresent it and misstate and disagree with it. And its very effective. Ive done it myself a number of times. But eventually, eventually people catch on. -Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. - William Pitt, 1783 They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Ben Franklin, 1755, to the Pennsylvania State Legislature Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it. - Germaine Greer The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt. - John Philpot Curran (1750-1817), Irish lawyer and politician. Speech, July 10, 1790, Dublin. I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery. - Jean Jaqueas Rousseau A slave is one who waits for someone else to free him. - Rosellen Brown I never got any complaints. - Assistant Commandant at Aushwitz, 11/01/1964 A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom. - Imamu Amiri Baraka All restraints upon mans natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree. - Lysander Spooner - Trial by Jury (19th century) I am against slavery simply because I dislike slaves. - H.L. Mencken, Sententiae As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy. - The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, (August 1, 1858?), p. 532. Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. - Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America (1835) All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others - George Orwell, Animal Farm, ch. 10 (1945). (The animals’ Commandment. The wording derives from Thomas Jefferson’s Preamble to the American Declaration of Independence) The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. It is the freedom to refrain, withdraw and abstain which makes a totalitarian regime impossible. - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, p 176, 1955 The people of Asia were slaves, because they had not learned how to pronounce the word no. - Winston Churchill (citing Alexander the Great), in a radio address - 10/16/1938 I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. - Professor Bernardo de la Paz, _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, by Robert Heinlien Too many people are only willing to defend rights that are personally important to them. Its selfish ignorance, and its exactly why totalitarian governments are able to get away with trampling on people. Freedom does not mean freedom just for the things I think I should be able to do. Freedom is for all of us. If people will not speak up for other peoples rights, there will come a day when they will lose their own. - Tony Lawrence ([email protected]) 12/28/95 In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didnt speak up because I was a protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was nobody left to speak up. - Reverend Martin Niemoller, Germany, 1930s To say I accept in an age like our own is to say that you accept concentration-camps, rubber truncheons, Hitler, Stalin, bombs, aeroplanes, tinned food, machine guns, putsches, purges, slogans, Bedaux belts, gas- masks, submarines, spies, provocateurs, press-censorship, secret prisons, aspirins, Hollywood films and political murder. - George Orwell (1903-1950), British author. Inside the Whale, Inside the Whale and Other Essays (1940).
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 06:51:40 +0000
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