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Totalitarian State Quotes

“The word could be translated in a number of ways. It could mean self-reliance, autonomy, independence, or responsibility—all the things we weren’t allowed to have. According to the Juche 'philosophy,' 'human beings are the masters of the world, so they get to decide everything.' It suggested we could reorganize the world, hew out a career for ourselves, and be the masters of our destiny. This was laughable, of course, but that’s always the way with totalitarian regimes. Language gets turned on its head. Serfdom is freedom. Repression is liberation. A police state is a democratic republic. And we were 'the masters of our destiny.' And if we begged to differ, we were dead.”

LiberationNorth KoreaRepressionPolice StateTotalitarian StateAuthoritarianRepatriation
Author:Masaji Ishikawa
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“A brilliant analysis of leadership in democratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian states, Archie Brown's The Myth of the Strong Leader draws on a remarkably wide range of examples and is distinguished by the relevance of its insights and by the precision and clarity of their exposition. It is an absorbing read that deserves to become a modern classic of political thinking.”

ThinkingStatesPoliticalStrongLeaderModernExampleDrawsDeserveDemocraticInsightWideMythBrilliantClarityRangeAnalysisClassicBrownDistinguishedRelevancePrecisionAbsorbingTotalitarian StateStrong LeadersPolitical Thinking
Author:Jack F. Matlock, Jr.
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“Pick the topic you like: the Middle East, international terrorism, Central America, whatever it is - the picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality. The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lies upon lies. It's all been a marvelous success from the point of view in deterring the threat of democracy, achieved under conditions of freedom, which is extremely interesting. It's not like a totalitarian state, where it's done by force. These achievements are under conditions of freedom.”

WorldMatterStatesDoneRealityAmericaLyingForceInterestingViewsDemocracyMiddleConditionsAchievementPicksRelationThreatInternationalTerrorismPoint Of ViewEastBuriedMiddle EastMarvelousTopicsEdificeCentral AmericaTotalitarian StateInternational Terrorism
Book:Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
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“There are two options for any society: total prohibition as in a totalitarian state, or total license. Both avoid the ardours of decision. Both have the attraction of certainty. The difficult option is to decide where the line should be drawn and this, surely, is the responsiblity of any civilized and democratic country.”

ShouldTwoCountryStatesDifficultLinesDecisionDemocraticAttractionCertaintyCivilizedLicenseProhibitionTotalitarian StateDemocratic CountryTwo Options
Book:Time to Be in Earnest
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“Every politically controlled educational system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy sooner or later. . . . Once that doctrine has been accepted, it becomes an almost superhuman task to break the stranglehold of the political power over the life of the citizen. It has had his body, property and mind in its clutches from infancy. An octopus would sooner release its prey. A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.”

MindHas BeensStatesBodyPoliticalBreakCitizensTaxesModelsTasksPropertyEducationalAcceptedDoctrineReleaseControlledSooner Or LaterPreyInfancyPolitical PowerSupremacyEducational SystemClutchSuperhumanCompulsoryOctopusTotalitarian State
Book:God of the Machine
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“People can live without a giant state. We've proven that already. But a giant state cannot live without dependent people. We feed the beast that puts us in shackles of our own creation. They are dependent on us. We think of revolutions as gunfire in the streets. But a soft and creeping tyranny can be beaten with a soft and creeping revolution. Think about it. Think about all the ways the totalitarian state is dependent on your personal actions. Think about what you do every day to help feed this beast and then stop doing that!”

PeopleThinkingWayStatesHelpingActionStreetsCreationRevolutionTyrannyGiantsBeastDependentProvenBeatenShacklesTotalitarian State
Author:Bill Whittle
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“I want to say, however, one thing our media in America has done which didn't happen in other totalitarian states is it has very effectively stood up to Donald Trump who has obvious fascist tendencies and his - who's a temptation like all authoritarian figures to try to crush the media or make it obey him. As that - the media has, in fact, stood up to him and has refused to bow out or cower.”

WantTryingStatesDoneFactsHappensAmericaOne ThingMediaFiguresTrumpObviousTendenciesTemptationCrushBowsFascistsStood UpTotalitarian State
Author:Tim Wu
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“I think that the next two generations of Americans will be grappling with the very real specter of finding themselves living in a new and bizarre kind of digital totalitarian state - one that looks and feels democratic on the surface, but has a fierce undercurrent of fear and technologically enforced fascism any time you step out of line. I really hope this isn't the case, but it looks really bad right now, doesn't it?”

ThinkingFeelsLooksKindTwoRealStatesNextLinesStepsCasesGenerationsRight NowFindingsDemocraticSurfaceDigitalFascismFierceBizarreGrapplingTotalitarian State
Author:Chelsea Manning
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“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”

StatesWould BePoliticalPowerfulArmySlavePopulationTyrannyManagersExecutivesBossTyrantsNew WorldEfficientServitudePublic EducationBrave New WorldBrave New World FreedomTotalitarian StateBrave New World Technology
Book:The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world
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“Who was I, really? I was the sole occupant of my mother's totalitarian state, my own personal history rewritten to fit the story she was telling that day. There were so many missing pieces. I was starting to find some of them, working my way upriver, collecting a secret cache of broken memories in a shoebox.”

WayStatesStoriesMotherMemoriesMy OwnSecretPiecesMissingBrokenFitStartingMy WaySoleCollectingPersonal HistoryTotalitarian StateMissing PieceCache
Book:White Oleander
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“The problem of values arises only when men try to fit together their need to be social animals with their need to be free men. There is no problem, and there are no values, until men want to do both. If an anarchist wants only freedom, whatever the cost, he will prefer the jungle of man at war with man. And if a tyrant wants only social order, he will create the totalitarian state.”

IfsMenWantNeedsTryingWarStatesProblemTogetherValuesOrderSocialAnimalFitCostAriseTyrantsNo ProblemJungleAnarchistFree ManSocial OrderTotalitarian State
Book:Science and Human Values
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“If one holds these high principles clearly before one's eyes, and compares them with the life and spirit of our times, then it appears glaringly that civilized mankind finds itself at present in grave danger. In the totalitarian states it is the rulers themselves who strive actually to destroy that spirit of humanity. In less threatened parts it is nationalism and intolerance, as well as the oppression of the individuals by economic means, which threaten to choke these most precious traditions.”

IfsWellsMeanStatesEyeScienceSpiritHumanityIndividualReligiousPrinciplesEconomicMankindDangerTraditionStriveGravesOppressionCompareOur TimeNationalismCivilizedRulersIntoleranceThreatenedChokeTotalitarian State
Book:Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words
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“Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion - the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals - the technique of the marketplace.”

WayTwoStatesUseIndividualLibertyMillionsEconomicModernActivityEconomicsArmyLibertarianTechniqueCooperationLibertarianismFree MarketMarketplaceCoercionTwo WaysInvolvingIndividual LibertyTotalitarian StateCoordinating
Book:Milton Friedman on Freedom: Selections from The Collected Works of Milton Friedman
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“[T]he theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire.”

BookStatesWholeGivenLibertyEconomicConditionsTheoryCompetitionProductionsFollowingDistributionAdaptedOutputLaissez FaireTotalitarian StateLaissez Faire Capitalism
Author:John Maynard Keynes
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“The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle, hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or laborer's cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.”

GivingStatesHomeJobsCan DoClassDemocracyOne ThingWallGunWorkersGreat ThingsSymbolsFlatsFactoriesBedroomWorking ClassGun ControlRiflesCottagesLaborersHanging OnTotalitarian StateFactory Workers
Book:The Complete Works of George Orwell: A patriot after all, 1940-1941
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“Sooner or later a democracy which is to survive has to be able to rely upon that enlargement of vision and purpose of those individuals who compose it, which means that their craving for devotion and self-sacrifice is satisfied in a democratic society on a nobler level, and with a finer recognition of the value of individual personality than is true of a national purpose of a totalitarian state under a dictator.”

MeanSelfStatesAblePurposeValuesIndividualLevelsVisionDemocracySacrificePersonalitySurvivalDemocraticSatisfiedDevotionRecognitionRelyDictatorSooner Or LaterCravingSelf SacrificeDemocratic SocietyRely UponEnlargementTotalitarian StateIndividual Personality
Author:Ordway Tead
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“I am against revolution and am proud of it. Democracy cannot be created through revolutions. The most important dichotomy that I make for a society is between those who support democracy and human rights, and those who oppose it. In a totalitarian state, the state views any act of an individual to be political in nature. For example, the clothing that a person wears in a modern state is a private affair whereas in the Islamic Republic all women are forced to wear the hijab (Islamic attire). When women push their headscarf back an inch or two, this is interpreted to be a political act.”

HumansPersonsTwoImportantStatesPoliticalIndividualViewsSupportDemocracyRightsModernExampleRevolutionProudAffairHuman RightsIslamicRepublicClothingsInchesDichotomyAttireTotalitarian StateHijabDemocracy And Human Rights
Author:Akbar Ganji
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“A new fascism promises security from the terror of crime. All that is required is that we take away the criminals' rights - which, of course, are our own. Out of our desperation and fear we begin to feel a sense of security from the new totalitarian state.”

FeelsStatesCoursesRightsSecurityCrimePromisePrisonTerrorCriminalsTyrannyTyrantsFascismDesperationTotalitarian State
Book:Give Me Liberty: Freeing Ourselves in the Twenty-First Century
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“Of course, we knew that the official reports were sketchy, if not falsified. But, in terms of information theory, this is precisely where the problem lay: How were we to reconstruct reality from incomplete or false reports? It is not true that virtually all news in a totalitarian state is false. On the contrary, most news is completely correct, albeit tendentiously slanded; it is just that certain information is suppressed. One can adjust for the political slanting of the news, but there is virtually no way to fill in the omissions.”

IfsWayStatesProblemRealityPoliticalCertainCoursesTermJusticeInformationTheoryNewsLaysContraryOfficialsReportsIncompleteOmissionTotalitarian StateSketchy
Author:Konrad Zuse
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“A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.”

MadeStatesShowsPastOrderMistakePracticeHappenedEffectsEventsPositionTriumphImaginaryRulingInfallibleCastesTheocracyTotalitarian StatePast Events
Book:All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays
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