Thoughts
From William Stafford
Those who advocate democracy and yet make a fetish of vilifying those whose beliefs are different from theirs, what value do they see in democracy?
2017-10-04 at 13:57:38
From Eric Hoffer
People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to bargain their independence for relief from the burdens of willing, and deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They will willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility. Moreover, submission by all to supreme leader is an approach to their ideal of equality.
2017-10-03 at 12:50:12
From Hank Aaron
My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.
2017-10-02 at 13:53:02
More From John Q. Whitehead
Indeed, I would venture to say that if you are not speaking out or taking a stand against government wrongdoing-if you are marching in lockstep with anything the government and its agents dole out-and if you are prioritizing partisan politics over the principles enshrined in the Constitution, then you are not a true patriot.
Real patriots care enough to take a stand, speak out, protest and challenge the government whenever it steps out of line.
There is nothing patriotic about the lengths to which Americans have allowed the government to go in its efforts to dismantle our constitutional republic and shift the country into a police state.
2017-09-28 at 16:36:00
More From Aldous Huxley
A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.
2017-09-26 at 12:46:30
From A.G. Sertillanges
Truth is commoner than articles of furniture. It cries out in the streets and does not turn its back on us when we turn our backs on it. Ideas emerge from facts; they also emerge from conversations, chance occurrences, theaters, visits, strolls, the most ordinary books. Everything holds treasures, because everything is in everything, and a few laws of life and of nature govern all the rest.
2017-09-25 at 16:05:50
From Jacob G. Hornberger
In fact, the entity that actually threatened the rights and freedoms of the American people was the United States government, given the totalitarian-like powers that it assumed as part of its effort to keep us safe from the enemies its interventionist policies were producing.
Coming to mind are the totalitarian-like power to assassinate Americans, secret mass surveillance, and the incarceration and torture of American citizens as suspected terrorists - all without due process of law and without trial by jury.
This is what a national-security state does to people - it warps, damages, or destroys their conscience, principles, and values; induces them to subscribe to false bromides; and nurtures all sorts of mental contortions to enable people to avoid confronting reality.
2017-09-20 at 13:15:01
From David D. Friedman
In spite of popular myths about capitalism oppressing the poor, the poor are worse off in those things provided by government, such as schooling, police protection, and justice. There are more good cars in the ghettos than good schools.
2017-09-15 at 13:12:48
From Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart
The 4th Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.
2017-09-14 at 14:24:03
From Pope Pius XII
Private property is a natural fruit of labor, a product of intense activity of man, acquired though his energetic determination to ensure and develop with his own strength his own existence and that of his family, and to create for himself and his own an existence of just freedom, not only economic, but also political, cultural and religious.
2017-09-13 at 13:00:52
From George Mason
That no free government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
2017-09-11 at 13:50:11
More From A. Barton Hinkle
"Civil asset forfeiture" is an unmitigated disaster. In practice, giving police officers a financial incentive to seize peoples property without having to bring any criminal charges against them is a recipe for wanton abuse.
2017-09-10 at 12:53:19
From Adam Dick
The police state can disappear, but likely only after a challenge pursued by a coalition of people the breadth of which extends across and beyond political party and "left-right" affiliations.
2017-09-09 at 12:28:14
More From Benjamin Franklin
There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
2017-09-08 at 15:03:36
From Ridgway K. Foley, Jr.
What is individual freedom and what is the proper function of law? Liberty is the absence of human intervention with the endeavors of an individual to utilize his life, liberty, and property (and all adjunct rights flowing therefrom) as he sees fit and for the ends he desires, limited only by the equal liberty of all individuals in society.
2017-09-06 at 12:36:08