Tyranny, Tyrants and Tyrannical Systems (2)
“Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.” Simone Weil
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“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” Benito Mussolini
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“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
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“Fascism is capitalism plus murder.” Upton Sinclair
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“Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that The State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.” Arthur Miller, playwright
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“Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” Frederick Douglass, African-American slave, and later abolitionist
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“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.” Samuel P. Huntington
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“Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.” Thomas Caryle
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“Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.” Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US President (1801-09), author of the Declaration of Independence
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“Democracy passes into despotism.” Plato, ancient Greek philosopher (428/427-348/347 B.C.)
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“The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.” Thomas Paine
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“Give government the weapons to fight your enemy and it will use them against you.” Harry Browne
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“Give me control over a man’s economic actions, and hence over his means of survival, and except for a few occasional heroes, I’ll promise to deliver to you men who think and write and behave as I want them to.” Benjamine A. Rooge
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“The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery.” Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil
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“God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith that he was sent to us by God to save Germany.” Hermann Goering, speaking of Hitler
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“A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.” Aristotle
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“If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long as I’m the dictator.” George W. Bush, 18 December 2000
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“International law? I better call my lawyer; he didn’t bring that up to me.” George W. Bush, 12 December 2003
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“God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he was sent to us by God to save Germany.” Hermann Goering, speaking of Hitler
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“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” Daniel Webster (1782-1852), US Senator
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“Herein lies a riddle: How can a people so gifted by God become so seduced by naked power, so greedy for money, so addicted to violence, so slavish before mediocre and treacherous leadership, so paranoid, deluded, lunatic?” Philip Berrigan, Hell, Healing and Resistance Veterans Speak
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“No government which governs by the use of force can survive except by force. There is no going back because force begets force and the perpetrators of crimes live in fear that they might become victims in their turn.” Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, Reconciliation Speech of 24/2/99 at St Mary’s Cathedral Hall, Sydney, NSW
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“How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder… But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is not murder. It is just, necessary, commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent. But how many does it take?” Adin Ballou, The Non-Resistant, 5 February 1845
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“There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for which the word violence was never used.... Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed.” Gil Bailie
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“How you can win the population for war: At first, the statesman will invent cheap lying, that impute the guilt of the attacked nation, and each person will be happy over this deceit, that calm the conscience. It will study it detailed and refuse to test arguments of the other opinion. So he will convince step for step even therefrom that the war is just and thank God, that he, after this process of grotesque even deceit, can sleep better.” Mark Twain
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“I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.” H. L. Mencken
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“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” James Madison
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“I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.” Eric Hoffer, speaking on Germany, “The True Believer”
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“I have named the destroyers of nations: comfort, plenty, and security—out of which grow a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction.” John Steinbeck, American novelist, Nobel Prize for Literature for 1962, 1902-1968
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“The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.” Joseph Stalin, Premier of the Soviet state, 1941-1953
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“I know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class.” Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), escaped slave, abolitionist, author, editor of the North Star and later the New National Era
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“I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology. ...Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda ... Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated.” Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), philosopher, educator
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“I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version.” Colonel Oliver North, from his Iran-Contra testimony
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“I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance and one night late it came to me this way. We could not leave (the Philippines) to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was. There was nothing left for us to do but take them all and educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them.” President William McKinley
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“I wouldn’t call it fascism exactly, but a political system nominally controlled by an irresponsible, dumbed down electorate who are manipulated by dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media that dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political establishment can hardly be described as democracy either.” Edward Zehr
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“If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.” Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787
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“If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.” Howard Zinn, historian and author
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“If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” James Madison (1751-1836), US fourth president
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“A great wave of oppressive tyranny isn’t going to strike, but rather a slow seepage of oppressive laws and regulations from within will sink the American dream of liberty.” George Baumler
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“The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.” Albert Camus (1913-1960), French novelist, essayist, and playwright, 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature
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