Authority is not a power, it is a responsibility.

The rulers of your minds indulge in proverbs, but they’ve forgotten the main one, that love cannot be forced, and they have a deeply rooted habit of liberating people and making them happy, especially those...

When freedom destroys order, the yearning for order will destroy freedom.”At that point the words left or right will make no difference. They are only two roads to the same end. There is no difference...

And is this not the very reason for the establishment of the State? If there were cause and reason for confidence among individuals, the State would never have come into existence. The sacred and essential...

to Vaneigem and the Situationists who by shrewd use of collage and juxtaposition exposed both the poverty and richness of slogans, and the thinly veiled hypocrisy of a “spectacular” society which by not respecting words...

Men in western governments who were themselves are often modern men, did not understand that freedom without chaos is not a magic formula which can be implanted anywhere. Rather, being modern men, it was their...

Even if Zuma was to develop the authoritarian impulses of a Mugabe, he would be checked—not least by his own party, which set a continental precedent by ousting Thabo Mbeki in 2007, after it felt...

One of the arguments that authoritarian governments use to ward off the call for greater political freedom is to argue that American-style democracy is no guarantee of good policy…. Over the years, I’ve grown used...

The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all...

Another person’s thoughts about you are outside of your jurisdiction; you have no authority.

We live in a time that demands a discourse of both critique and possibility, one that recognizes that without an informed citizenry, collective struggle, and viable social movements, democracy will slip out of our reach...

Looking into the mirror I ask myself:”You live in a house equipped with air conditioning.You eat tasty food.You utilize convenient transportation to travel.You utilize convenient information technology to live.Could you not say that you, who...

No teacher has the right to cure a child of making noises on a drum. The only curing that should be practiced is the curing of unhappiness.

The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.

Let us fool ourselves no longer. At the very moment Western nations, threw off the ancient regime of absolute government, operating under a once-divine king, they were restoring this same system in a far more...

It was sometimes feebly argued, as the political and military war against this enemy ran into difficulties, that it was ‘a war without end.’ I never saw the point of this plaintive objection. The war...

TWO AND TWO MAKES FIVE

Social conservatism and neoconservatism have revived authoritarian conservatism, and not for the better of conservatism or American democracy. True conservatism is cautious and prudent. Authoritarianism is rash and radical. American democracy has benefited from true...

And I wonder, therefore, how James Atlas can have been so indulgent in his recent essay ‘The Changing World of New York Intellectuals.’ This rather shallow piece appeared in the New York Times magazine, and...

Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programs all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs faked.

Results of two independent factor analyses of the survey responses of more than 2000 English and American citizens parallel these findings (19,33):- fear and exclusion: persons with severe mental illness should be feared and, therefore,...

Sooner or later, all talk among foreigners in Pyongyang turns to one imponderable subject. Do the locals really believe what they are told, and do they truly revere Fat Man and Little Boy? I have...

The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what they [the government] do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what...

The individual act of obedience is the cornerstone not only of the strength of authoritarian society but also of its weakness.

Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face...

Every time I do an interview people ask similar questions, such as “What is the most significant story that you have revealed?” […] There really is only one overarching point that all of these stories...

The people have realized that Martial Law is not law. A regime not established by law is devoid of the attribute to dispense law. A regime which puts in a bunker the highest law in...

Study after study has show that human behavior changes when we know we’re being watched. Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively *are* less free.

The hallmark of an authoritarian idiot is yelling TERRORIST-LOVER! at anyone questioning the definition of Terrorist.

The liberal state has no view on whether witchcraft is more valuable than all-in wrestling. Like a tactful publican, it has as few opinions as possible. Many liberals suspect passionate convictions are latently authoritarian. But...

Wer treten wollte, muß sich treten lassen.

I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We were a democracy…But I...