“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.”
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi (1828-1910),
Russian writer. Source: On Life and Essays on Religion
“Free inquiry requires that we tolerate diversityof opinion and that we respect the right of individuals to express their beliefs, however unpopular they may be, without social or legal prohibition or fear of success.”
Paul Kurtz.
Source: “A Secular Humanist Declaration,” in On The Barricades, 1989
“It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”
Noël Coward, Blithe Spirit
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country . . . we’re dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . it is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.”
Edward Bernays,
Propaganda, Liveright Publishing Company, New York, 2005, excerpts from pp. 9-19
“The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretchedout, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing”
Jules Henry,
Culture Against Man, 1963.
Roger Langen
“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”
Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915)
“What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment … inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose”
St Augustine.
“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it”.
Noam Chomsky
“The violent subjugation of the Palestinians, Iraqis, and Afghans will only ensure that those who oppose us will increasingly speak to us in the language we speak to them-violence.”
Chris Hedges
“There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons.”
Tony Benn
“The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference” Bess Myerson
“We, as individuals, are fast losing our reputation for honest dealing. Our nation is losing its character. The loss of a firm national character, or the degredation of a nation’s honour, is the inevitable prelude to her destruction”
William Wells Brown
“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.” —
Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845) ,
US Supreme Court Justice 1833
“If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.”
Francis Bacon
“Live truth instead of professing it”
Elbert Hubbard
“If Big Brother (of Orwell’s 1984) comes to America, he will not be a fearsome, foreboding figure with a heart-chilling, omnipresent glare as in 1984. He will come with a smile on his face, a quip on his lips, a wave to the crowd, and a press that (a) dutifully reports the suppressive measures he is taking to save the nation from internal chaos and foreign threat; and (b) gingerly questions whether he will be able to succeed.”
Michael Parenti (1933 )
Source: “Inventing Reality” (1986)
“The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did…they always will. They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by the power of government, keep them in their proper spheres.”
Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816)
represented Pennsylvania in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, author of large sections of the Constitution for the United States, credited as the author of its Preamble
“Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires”
Edward W. Said
“Orientalism 25 Years Later,”
“If the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded.”
Noah Webster (1758-1843)
American patriot and scholar, author of the 1806 edition of the dictionary that bears his name, the first dictionary of American English usage.
“He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.”
Aquinas
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have: three meals a day for their bodies, – education and culture for their minds – and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Law is often the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”
Thomas Jefferson
Tiffany, 1819
“What luck for the rulers that men do not think.”
Adolf Hitler,
German Nazi dictator, orator, & politician (1889 – 1945)
“Propaganda is persuading people to make up their minds while withholding some of the facts from them.”
Harold Evans
“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels,
born in 1897 and died in 1945. Goebbels was Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda
“If we work in marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instill into them just principles, we are then engraving upon tablets which no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity”
Daniel Webster
“Live your life right. Love with all your heart. Don’t hurt others, and help those in need. That is all you need to know. And don’t worry about heaven. If it exists, you’ll be welcome.”
Ellen Hopkins, Burned
“They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as authority.”
Gerald Massey
“It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition to stand up for it:
A. A. Hodge
“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance”.
Robert F. Kennedy,
US Attorney General 1961-64, assassinated in Los Angeles while campaigning
“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride”
William James
“Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your Honor. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse”.
Mark Twain.
“If once [the people] become inattentive to the
public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”
Thomas Jefferson
to Edward Carrington, 1787
“Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.”
Buddha,
Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta
“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the greatest liars: the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956),
American Journalist, Editor, Essayist
“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.”
Ernesto Che Guevara
” … the media in the United States effect
ively represents the interests of corporate America, and … the media elite are the watchdogs of what constitutes acceptable ideological messages, the parameters of news and information content”.
Peter Phillips,
Project Censored, 1998.
Brahmanism:
“This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you”
(Mahabharata 5:1517)
Christianity:
“All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”
(Matthew 7:12)
Islam:
“No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”
(Sunnah)
Buddhism:
“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”
(Udana Varga 5:18)
Judaism: “
What is hateful to you, do not to your fellowmen. That is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.”
(Talmud, Shabbat 31:a)
Confucianism:
“Surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness: Do not unto others that you would not have them do unto you.”
Analects 15:23
Taoism:
“Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”
(T’ai Shag Kan Ying P’ien)
Zoroastrianism:
“That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good: for itself. ”
(Dadistan-i-dinik 94:5)
Bron/Source: Information Clearing House
=======================
Lees ook:
Verbannen door de Volkskrant, vanwege meningsuiting
De Volkskrant geeft geen betrouwbare weergave van lezersreacties.
De Volkskrant ‘verbergt’ kritische reacties (en verliest zo ons vertrouwen).
Het VK Weblog werd verdonkeremaand: Te kritisch?
Vrije meningsuiting is essentieel voor publiek debat.
‘Mensenrechten, ook voor Volkskrantlezers?’
(N.a.v. Commentaar de Volkskrant, 10 dec 2008 (‘Mensenrechten, ook voor Zimbabwanen?’)).
‘De Volkskrant mag lezersreacties verwijderen.’
(Commentaar de Volkskrant, 26 aug 2008)
RvdJ: De Volkskrant mag ook rechtmatige reacties verwijderen. Deel 1: De Klacht.
RvdJ: De Volkskrant mag ook rechtmatige reacties verwijderen. Deel 2: Pleidooi.
‘Rechten en plichten op de site.’
(Column van Thom Meens, Ombudsman van de Volkskrant.)
Willekeur regeert in reactie- en discussieplatforms.
Is reactie op website gelijk aan ingezonden brief?
Pleidooi voor vrije meningsuiting van reageerders.
Klacht bij de Raad voor de Journalistiek ivm censuur VK.
Reactie- en discussieforum is publiek domein, zegt VK Ombudsman.
Redactionele vrijheid gaat boven vrijheid van meningsuiting, vindt RvdJ.
Smaad, laster en beledigingen verstoren publieke discussies.
Zijn er regels voor publiek debat op particulier weblog?
Vrije meningsuiting in de Volkskrant: een kwestie van volhouden.
Spamblogs saboteren het VK weblog. Wie zit daar achter?
VK Opinie beïnvloedt op oneerlijke wijze de verhoudingen in het publieke debat.
Verbannen vanwege kritiek op een column. Kan het gekker?
Robert VanWaning 
Een gedachte over “Vrije meningsuiting is essentieel voor publiek debat.”