Again
"Arbitrary power is ugly and vicious, regardless of what pious rhetoric goes with it. Freedom is not free. You have to fight for it or lose it. But is our generation up to fighting for it?"--Thomas Sowell
"May it be to the world what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self government. That form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man. Ihe general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born, with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the Grace of God."--Thomas Jefferson's last letter, to Roger C. Weightman, 1826
"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker."--Frederick Douglass
"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."--Actual President John F. Kennedy, remarks on the 20th Anniversary of the Voice of America; Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, February 26, 1962
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”-- Postmaster General Benjamin Franklin, "Silence Dogood", 1722
Real President Trump Declares War on the Censorship-Industrial Complex:
Magnificent!
From George Washington to Officers of the Army, 15 March 1783
Commander Washington also put down a Coup, writing:
“… for if Men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind; reason is of no use to us—the freedom of Speech may be taken away—and, dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter. …
And let me conjure you, in the name of our common Country–as you value your own sacred honor—as you respect the rights of humanity, & as you regard the Military & national character of America, to express your utmost horror & detestation of the Man who wishes, under any specious pretences, to overturn the liberties of our Country, & who wickedly attempts to open the flood Gates of Civil discord, & deluge our rising Empire in Blood.
By thus determining–& thus acting, you will pursue the plain & direct Road to the attainment of your wishes. You will defeat the insidious designs of our Enemies, who are compelled to resort from open force to secret Artifice. You will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism & patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings; And you will, by the dignity of your Conduct, afford occasion for Posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to man kind, “had this day been wanting, the World had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.”
Go: Washington
To the General, Field, & other Officers Assembled at the New Building
pursuant to the General Order of the 11th Instant March.-- From George Washington to Officers of the Army, 15 March 1783
Washington’s surprise address to his men at Newburgh helped quell talk of a military coup against the government of the young nation.--The Bill of Rights Institute: George Washington at Newburgh
"The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false."--Historian Paul Johnson
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| "That, I can tell you." |
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