The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
Category: liberty
Gradual losses
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.
Liberty is not for wimps
Most Americans, whether liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican, do not show much understanding or respect for the principles of personal liberty. We criticize our political leaders, but we must recognize that their behavior simply reflects the values of people who elected them to office. That means we are all to blame for greater governmental control over our lives and a decline in personal liberty. Let me outline some fundamental principles of liberty.
Liberty and the press
The press is hostile to the idea of liberty. Most people in the press are for big government. Most people think that the solution to anything, whether it’s health care problems, education, whatever it is — it’s got to be more government.
The fundamentals
If liberty is worth keeping and free representative government worth saving, we must stand for all American fundamentals — not some, but all. All are woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. We cannot hold fast to some only, and abandon others that, for the moment, we find inconvenient. If one American fundamental is prostrated, others in the end will surely fall.
Loss of American liberties
We’ve witnessed a fire sale of American liberties at bargain basement prices, in return for the false promise of more security … The America being designed right now won’t resemble the America we’ve been defending … The danger isn’t that Big Brother may storm the castle gates. The danger is that Americans don’t realize that he is already inside the castle walls.
Why we fight
Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law, and personal freedom are under attack by the nation’s own government. That’s why, if we want to restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight for those principles.
Nature of liberty
Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.
Equality vs. liberty
Nations that have pursued equality, like the Iron Curtain countries, I think have finished up with neither equality, nor liberty. Nations, which like us, in the past have pursued liberty, as a fundamental objective, extending it to all, have finished up with liberty, human dignity, and far fewer inequalities than other people.
The greatest dangers to liberty
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.