Quotes for our times
I wanted to cite some of my favorite quotes. This page includes what I had in mind.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence — it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. — George Washington
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. — Wendell Phillips
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. — Benjamin Franklin
Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. — Frederick Douglass
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. — Edmund Burke
First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me. — Martin Niemoeller
(Their version of the Washington quote was incomplete, and of the Niemoeller quote incorrect; I’ve presented the longer and correct versions, respectively.)
More than the Bush administration itself, what scares me is the public complacency and complicity I see… the assumption of the benevolence and correctness of the government, that everything they might do is justified in the name of safety. The smug self-assurance and lack of imagination that of course _they_’ll never be wrongly accused of a crime, so it doesn’t matter if the government dispenses with civil rights while rounding up a bunch of brown-skinned people. The willingness to assume the guilt of the detained prior to any evidence, or even an accusation.
Does anyone know an original source for “people get the government they deserve”?
I don't know for sure about "people get the government they deserve", but I'd start with Lincoln and Churchill, the sources for most pithy quotes about government. Orwell is a possibility as well.
One problem with the current American system of government, of course, is that we only get the government that a plurality of the voters deserve.
Posted by Jimcat on May 1 2003 05:45
Thoreau was my initial thought...don't know though.
I think if everyone voted (and we did away with the electoral college) we'd have a much kinder, gentler government. Remember that old saying: The moral majority is neither moral, nor a majority.
Posted by George on May 1 2003 07:45
Re "the people get the government they deserve": I thought it was Thomas Jefferson.
Posted by Jen on May 1 2003 10:01
I think one of the implications of the "government they deserve" quote is that largely uninformed, non-voting electorates also get the governments they deserve.
Having said that, I balk at the notion that the people of Chile deserved Pinochet, for example.
I'd be willing to place a small wager that if the USA stops supporting transparent government in Iraq before at least one verifiable national election, more than three administration officials or prominent pundits will imply that Iraqis are somehow unfit for or undeserving of democracy.
Posted by Dan on May 1 2003 13:41
Is one of these perhaps the quotation you're looking for?
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."
H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
(source: The Quotations Page
Posted by Gris on May 9 2003 17:40
"Every country has the government it deserves"
-Joseph de Maistre (1753 - 1821) Written on August 15, 1811
Posted by Kory on August 18 2004 07:15
In a Democracy, the people get the government they deserve - Alexis de Tocqueville.
Posted by Elisa on December 21 2005 23:37