". . . I know of no safe depository
of the ultimate powers of the society
but the people themselves;
not enlightened enough to exercise their control
with wholesome discretion,
the remedy is not to take it from them,
but to inform their discretion.
Enlighten the people generally
and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind
will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
|
"I believe that the community
is already in the process of dissolutionwhere each man begins to
eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity
with the accepted creed,
political as well as religious,
is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation,
without specification or backing,
takes the place of evidence; where orothodoxy
chokes freedom of dissent; where faith
in the eventual supremacy of reason
has become so timid that
we dare not enter our convictions
in the open lists
to win or lose."
Justice Lerned Hand
|
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"Of all the forms of tyranny
over the mind of man,
none is more terrible than fear --
to be afraid
of being one's self
among one's neighbors."
Paul B. Hoffman
"I can't help
an occasional semi-shudder
as I remember that
millions of intelligent men
think that I am barred
from the face of God
unless I change.But how can one
pretend to believe
what seems to him childish
and devoid alike
of historical and rational foundations?"
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
|
"The safest way to make laws respected
is to make laws respectable."
Interesting choice of word, "safest."
Kojak once said, "Police are a thin blue line
that separates society from chaos."
(God I love TV!)
"Things to which men must be driven by force,
cease to be, thanks to the force,
for the common good."
tyranny: oppressive and unjust government; despotism; very cruel and unjust use of power or authority.
"A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means
and bad men."
"Bad means" is bad laws, but what did Paine mean by "bad men"?
BAD COPS:
it's not putting on a badge
that makes them want to act like punks;
it's being punks
that makes them want to put on a badge.
Crime is Contagious
"Decency, security and liberty alike
demand that government officials
shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct
that are commands to the citizen.
In a government of laws,
existence of the government will be imperiled
if it fails to observe the law scrupulously.
Our Government is the potent, the
omnipresent teacher.
For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its
example."
( The real shame is that this sergeant does this all the time . . .
and to cap matters, the curb in front of him is painted RED
-- as in, emergency vehicles only? )
"Crime is contagious.
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...would bring terrible retribution.
Against that pernicious doctrine this
Court should resolutely set its face."
United States Supreme Court Justice Loius Brandeis
Olmstead v. United States
(1928)
fascism:
a political group, an organization, a club . . .;
a system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship,
forcible suppression of the opposition,
the retention of private ownership of the means of production
under centralized governmental control,
belligerent nationalism and racism,
glorification of war, etc.
Never insult small minded men in positions of power.
CONTINUE
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Last updated: April 2004
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