[I]t is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
--Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering
[I]f you support the kinds of political programs promoted by the Nazis in 1920's and 30's, you, my friend, are a fascist, whether you want to be or not. --Russ Madden
If the events of September 11th have proven anything, it's that
the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes
us American -- our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only
Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that. --Jon Stewart
I believed [half a lifetime ago] that FDR was the greatest President we ever had, because, in a time of "crisis," he illegally seized control of the nation's economy, ramped up the military-industrial complex, and manipulated public opinion to squash his opposition. On the other hand, I believed Hitler was the most evil leader of the 20th century because, in a time of "crisis," he illegally seized control of his nation's economy, ramped up the military-industrial complex, and
manipulated public opinion to squash his opposition.... I believed that when federal agents abused their authority and acted outside the Constitution, they were "just doing their jobs." Yet, I believed that the Nuremberg tribunal acted correctly when they ruled that "just following orders" was not an acceptable defense. --Robert J. Cruze Jr.
The more I'm in this battle, the less I believe that constitutional law on its own can solve the problem. If Americans can't see the value of freedom without the help of lawyers, then we don't deserve freedom. We should be working to help Americans recognize freedom again. --Lawrence Lessig
Americans today are like well trained dogs. They measure "freedom" by the length of their leash, not by the respectful distance others maintain. --Kent Van Cleave
I cannot say that our country could have no central police without becoming totalitarian, but I can say with great conviction that it cannot be totalitarian without a centralized national police. A national police will have enough on enough people, even if it does not elect to prosecute them, so that it will find no opposition to its policies. --Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, The Supreme Court In the American System of Government (1955)
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission, which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. --Ayn Rand, "The Nature of Government."
What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion. --Ayn Rand.
Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals -- that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government -- that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizens' protection against the government. --Ayn Rand.
Any system of entrusting the government to judge and correct its own abuses is the same as appointing the accused criminal as his own judge and jury: Don't expect many convictions. --Allen Thornton, Laws of the Jungle
If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retributions. --Justice Louis Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead et al. v. United States, 277 U.S. 485 (1928)
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. --Justice Louis Brandeis , - Olmstead v US 277 US 479 (1928)
In all sorts of government man is made to believe himself free, and to be in chains. --King Stanislaus of Poland, 1763
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. -- H.L. Mencken
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them. --Frederick Douglass
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. -- Johann W. Von Goethe
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. -- THOMAS PAINE
People dream of making the virtuous powerful, so they can depend upon them. Since they cannot do that, people choose to make the powerful virtuous, glorifying in becoming victimized by them. --Thomas Szasz
Know, otherhandwise, that the easiest, most humiliating path to defeat is thinking that to beat the enemy you must be like him. Avoid the temptation to set your values aside "for the duration". What's the point of fighting if you give up what you're fighting for? If remaining consistent with your values leads to defeat, you chose the wrong values to begin with. --L. Neil Smith
Other than supporting The Bill of Rights, does anything constitute treason in this country any more? --Minority Mike
It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. --James Fenimore Cooper
As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. --Justice William O. Douglas
If a man neglects to enforce his rights, he cannot complain if, after a while, the law follows his example. --OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. --George Bernard Shaw
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. --CHARLES A. BEARD
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. --SALLUST
God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it. -- Daniel Webster
Oh, my countrymen! What will our children say, when they read the history of these times? Should they find we tamely gave away without one noble struggle, the most invaluable of earthly blessings? As they drag the galling chain, will they not execrate us? If we have any respect for things sacred; any regard to the dearest treasures on earth; if we have one tender sentiment for posterity; if we would not be despised by the whole world -- let us in the most open, solemn manner, and with determined fortitude, swear we will die, if we cannot live free men! --Josiah Quincy, Jr., 1788 Boston Gazette
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back into bondage. --Alexander Tyler, 18th century Scottish economist/historian
War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. -- John Stuart Mill
I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand. --SUSAN B. ANTHONY
If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. --Winston Churchill
Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA ... ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the state. --Hienrich Himmler.
All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately. The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every responsible opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above-named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the government. --SA Oberfuhrer, of Bad Tolz, March 1939.
The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure. --Albert Einstein
I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else. --John Locke
Patrick Henry never said, "Give me absolute safety or give me death!" --John Stossel
First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me. --Rev Martin Niemoller, 1945 A protestant pastor, who spent 1937 to 1945 in Sachsenhausen & Dachau Concentration Camps.
Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. --John F. Kennedy
False is the idea of utility ... that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction of liberty. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes ... such laws serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. --Thomas Jefferson
This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future. --Adolf Hitler, 1935
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. --JUSTICE LEARNED HAND
It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late revolution. The freemen of America will not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled itself in precedents. They saw all the consequences by denying the principal. We revere this lesson too much to forget it. --James Madison
Liberty and order will never be perfectly safe until a trespass on the Constitutional provisions for either shall be felt with the same keenness that resents an invasion of the dearest rights. --James Madison
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair. --H.L. MENCKEN
Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions. It's the only way to make progress. --TERRY PRATCHETT
In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. --THOMAS JEFFERSON
There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust. --Demosthenes.
Patriots are not revolutionaries trying to overthrow government. Patriots are counter-revolutionaries trying to prevent government from overthrowing the U.S. Constitution [and, the Bill of Rights]. --Anonymous.
Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. --James Madison, 1798
Wherever there are men, there will be parties... Those of firm health and spirits are unwilling to cede more of their liberty than is necessary to preserve order; those of feeble constitutions will wish to see one strong arm able to protect them from the many. These are the Whigs and Tories of nature... The Tories are for strengthening the Executive and General Government; the Whigs cherish the representative branch and the rights reserved by the States as the bulwark against consolidation. --THOMAS JEFFERSON
The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. - Thomas Jefferson, "Thomas Jefferson Papers," p 334 (C.J.Boyd, Ed. 1950).
