By: Sophie McAdam,
True Activist.
1. “It is not the function of the government to stop the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.” – Justice Robert Jackson, judge at the Nuremberg trials
2. “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” – Thomas Jefferson
3. “To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured (and) commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so.” – Pierre Joseph Prouhon
4. “The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” – Thomas Paine
5. “Surely by now there can be few here who still believe the purpose of government is to protect us from the destructive activities of corporations. At last most of us must understand that the opposite is true: that the primary purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the outrage of injured citizens.” – Derrick Jensen
6. “If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.” – Mark Twain
7. “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” – Voltaire
8. “What has allowed so many psychopathic personalities to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin’ day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reasons that they don’t give a fuck what happens next. Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass! There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.” – Kurt Vonnegut
9. “Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.” – Thomas Jefferson
10. “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.” – Edward R Murrow
11. “The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” – Tacitus
12. “The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.” – Thomas Jefferson
13. “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable…” – H.L Mencken
14. “The government is us; WE are the government, you and I” – Theodore Roosevelt”
15. “Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.” – Herbert Marcuse
16. “It shouldn’t be a bragging point that “Oh, I don’t get involved in politics,” as if that makes you somehow cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn’t insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable.” – Bill Maher
17. “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence – it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master.” -vGeorge Washington
18. “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” – James Bovard
19. “The government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant. It cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.” – Mark Twain
20. “That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.” – Henry David Thoreau
