The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charges known to the law, and particularly to deny him judgment by his peers for an indefinite period, is in the highest degree odious, and is the foundation of all totalitarian governments … Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilisation.
Tag: Winston Churchill
(1874-1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Unforgivable sin
The unforgivable sin of Hitler’s Germany was to develop a new economic system by which the international bankers were deprived of their profits.
Free speech
Everybody is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.
Economics 101
You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.
Appeasement
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Stumbling over the truth
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on.
Private enterprise
Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is — the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.
The philosophy of socialism
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Youth vs. experience
Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.
Life under socialism
No socialist government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance. And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared it’s head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil. And where would the ordinary simple folk — the common people, as they like to call them in America — where would they be, once this mighty organism has got them in it’s grip?