“During the last dozen years the tales of suppression of free assemblage, free press, and free speech, by local authorities or the State operating under martial law have been so numerous as to have become an old story. They are attacked at the instigation of an economically and socially powerful class, itself enjoying to the full the advantages of free communications, but bent on denying them to the class it holds within its power.” YearsHas BeensWarStatesStoriesLastsLawEnjoyPowerfulClassPowerMilitaryCommunicationSpeechAuthorityAdvantageEconomicsConstitutionPressesLocalsTalesOppressionDozenFree SpeechBentDespotismSuppressionFree PressAssemblageMartial Law Author:Edward Alsworth Ross
“The ever-present impulse is to push against restriction and, in so doing, to feel intolerably hemmed in. Thus in practice, every liberation increases the sense of oppression. Nor is the paradox merely in the mind: the laws enacted to secure the rights of every person and group, by creating protective boundaries, create new barriers.” FeelsMindPersonsLawPracticeRightsGroupsCreatingIncreaseBoundariesOppressionSecureLiberationImpulseBarriersParadoxRestrictionProtective Author:Jacques Barzun
“I would rather quit public life at seventy, and quit it forever, than to retain public life at a sacrifice to my own self-respect. I will not vote for any law which will make fair for me and foul for another. The blacklist is the most cruel form of oppression ever devised by man for the infliction of suffering upon his weaker fellows.” MenSelfFormLawSufferingMy OwnForeverSacrificeFairsVoteFellowsQuittingOppressionSelf RespectSeventiesFoulPublic LifeInfliction Author:Joseph Gurney Cannon
“Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.” IfsGivingStillsFormLawPoliticalPassionPoliticsViewsEconomyEffectsInspireTaughtMoralityConflictImportanceSlaveryPoint Of ViewOppressionTragicMonopolySanctionsExaggeratedPerversionRobberyPolitical EconomySupposition Author:Frederic Bastiat
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that 'if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression', human rights should be protected by the rule of law. That just laws which uphold human rights are the necessary foundation of peace and security would be denied only by closed minds which interpret peace as the silence of all opposition and security as the assurance of their own power.” IfsMenShouldMindHumansWould BeLastsLawPeaceSilenceRightsSecurityUniversalFoundationHuman RightsTyrannyOppressionOppositionRebellionDeniedProtectedDeclarationCompelledAssuranceResortsRule Of LawRecoursePeace And SecurityClosed MindDeclaration Of Human Rights Author:Aung San Suu Kyi
“That the legislative and executive powers of the State should be separate and distinct from the judiciary; and that the members of the two first may be restrained from oppression, by feeling and participating the burdens of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies be supplied by frequent, certain, and regular elections, in which all, or any part of the former members, to be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.” PeopleShouldFirstsMayTwoStatesFeelingsBodyLawCertainPoliticsTakenReturnPeriodsMembersDirectElectionBurdenOppressionFormerFixedExecutivesStationsParticipatingJudiciaryVacancyExecutive Power Author:George Mason
“the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” Would BeLawRightsProtectEqualMajorityCivil RightsOppressionMinoritiesOppressedEqual RightsFreedom LibertyPrice Of FreedomUnalienable RightsMajority RuleTyranny Of The MajorityPolitical OppressionMajority And MinorityMinority Government Author:Thomas Jefferson
“History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. ... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened.” PeopleStatesWholeLawPoliticalNationsInterestFailingPolicyGeniusConnectionsPrejudiceIllAffectionFavorsSeparationViolentObligationOppressionInstanceRuinsTemperOppressedMistakenAnimosityProsecution Author:Benjamin Franklin
“This is what the government is, has always been, the creator and defender of privilege; the organization of oppression and revenge. To hope that it can ever become anything else is the vainest of delusions. They tell you that Anarchy, the dream of social order without government, is a wild fancy. The wildest dream that ever entered the heart of man is the dream that mankind can ever help itself through an appeal to law, or to come to any order that will not result in slavery wherein there is any excuse for government.” MenHeartHelpingDreamGovernmentLawOrderSocialResultsMankindOrganizationSlaveryPrivilegeCreatorExcuseRevengeOppressionAppealsFancyDelusionAnarchyDefendersSocial OrderWildest Dreams Author:Voltairine de Cleyre