Libertarian meat eater, right wing in the sense of conservative with a small c.

Saturday 19 April 2008

Quotable quotes part 1

With ever more examples of attempted social engineering such as "Utter Bollocks" we should bear the following in mind:

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

(Justice Louis D. Brandeis)

An obviously evil tyrant is easy to oppose, (winning that opposition is something else), those who by genuine belief or deception wish to take away our Liberties "for our own good" are harder to contend with. Throughout history, (in the UK at least), it has been the obvious tyrants we have faced as the greater danger. Now that that route is closed, it is no surprise to see them take the road less traveled but the destination, our lives under their control, is the same.

The problem is "Salami Tactics", (see 1.20 in), each little erosion of Liberty is seen as not worth bothering with but they add up over time and before you know it you have nothing left. Instead of a Nuclear Option, we must resist each time those in power attempt to take away our remaining Liberties and demand back those they have stolen from us.

1 comment:

John B said...

"Throughout history, (in the UK at least), it has been the obvious tyrants we have faced as the greater danger."

Not sure about this. I mean, yes from 1939-45, but otherwise the dangers have tended to come from rulers of one religious hue or another who genuinely wanted to make people's lives more virtuous - Mary vs Protestants, more or less all the others from 1550-1750 vs Catholics, Oliver Cromwell vs anything that looked fun...

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