Too many people are only willing to defend rights that are personally important to them. It's selfish ignorance, and it's exactly why totalitarian governments are able to get away with trampling on people. Freedom does not mean freedom just for the things I think I should be able to do. Freedom is for all of us. If people will not speak up for other people's rights, there will come a day when they will lose their own.
The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in inequity and born in sin... Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them but leave them the power to create money, and, with a flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again... Take this great power away from them, or if you want to continue to be the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.
- Sir Joseph Stamp, former president of the Bank of England.
There is no greater power in America today than that wielded by the manipulators of public opinion. No king or pope of old ever disposed of a power approached by that of a few dozen men who control America's mass news and entertainment media.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
- Samuel Adams
McVeigh said he blew up the building in Oklahoma City to protest the federal government's actions in Waco -- and he was quickly apprehended, tried, and punished for his crime. That was proper, even if you might disagree with the morality of the death sentence. However, not a single FBI or BATF agent was arrested for their role in the fiery deaths of 86 people at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. There should not be one standard of justice for ordinary Americans, and another for government officials. Until that injustice is eliminated, many Americans will continue to view their government with suspicion, fear, and bitterness. People tend to turn to violence only when they feel they have no other way to be heard. When Americans feel they have a role in the political system, they will work through the political system to make productive changes. When that avenue is blocked -- either by restrictive ballot access laws, legal curbs on political speech, exclusion from debates, or by attempting to discredit unpopular political speech -- the Timothy McVeighs of the world turn to violence. That's why robust political debate -- especially about the abuse of government power -- is a healthy way to change the system. And that's why stifling such debate is downright dangerous.
- Steve Dasbach, Libertarian Party Press release, June 12, 2001
We, the people, are the rightful masters of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the constitution.
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Henry Ford
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself
How to avoid these conflicts is something the human race has to learn. This century will go down as the bloodiest century in all of human history. We'll have lost 160 million people, killed by conflict. Is that what we want in the 21st century?
We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth
True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else
The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.
Malcolm X
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.
Thomas Paine
My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!
Thomas Jefferson
