Epigraphs

"An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come."

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans......unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing."

"America did not invent Human Rights....
Human Rights invented America."

"We would be guilty of great error in our conduct toward other nations if we endeavored to force liberty on our neighbors in our own form."

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

"Those who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be."

"I think it's a nutty idea to fool around with the Social Security system and run the risk of [hurting] the people who've been saving all their lives.... It may be a new idea, but it's a dumb one."

Response to a question about partially privatizing the program.

"I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."
(Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775)

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our Number One priority, and we will not rest until we find him!"
George W. Bush, September 13, 2001

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and I really don't care. Its not that important. It's not our priority."
George W. Bush, March 13, 2002

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."

"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America."

"A popular government, without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps, both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives."

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. "

"Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough."

"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy."

"...the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." ~from the Treaty of Tripoli~

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military
consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."

"It's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, 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 pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
(at the Nuremberg Trial)

"Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religions."

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." -

"I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag!"

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine; and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular... We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result."

"What luck for rulers, that men do not think. "

"The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

"I Love My Country but Fear My Government!"

"Freedom is when the People can speak.
Democracy is when the Government listens."

"You fight terrorism by creating more justice in the world."

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act".

"The claim and exercise of a constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime."

Nobody censors speech they agree with!

"If you think Bush is spying on you, just use big words."

"If you think yourself too wise to involve yourself in Government, you will be governed by those too foolish to govern."

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

"The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves."

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace -- business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

The truth is the only thing worth having, and, in a civilized life, like ours, where so many risks are removed, facing it is almost the only courageous thing left to do.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you have to focus on"

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites." (ref. Bartlett's 16th Ed., p.343)

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

A silent majority and government by the people is incompatible.

“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”


To paraphrase Pastor Martin Noemuller’s poem about Germany in the ‘30s and ‘40s: First they came for the Fourth Amendment, then they came for habeas corpus, then came for free speech, and there was no one allowed to speak up.

Mr. Gingrich: "My view is that either before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that we use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech...."
Mr. Olbermann: "  If you’re going to destroy freedom of speech, bub, you’ve already lost all the cities."

"I'm in the happy position of having predicted a short, easy war followed by the peace from hell. And so far, I'm looking like a genius."