Nothing Left to Lose

Some quotes to ponder from Sam Smith's Progressive Review:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

-- Benjamin Franklin

We come to give you liberty and equality. But don't lose your heads about it -- the first person who stirs without my permission will be shot.

-- Marshal Pierre F.J. Lefebvre, 1807

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

-Thomas Jefferson

The streets of our country are in turmoil. The universities are full of students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. Russia is threatening us with her might and the Republic is in danger. Yes, danger from within and without. We need law and order. Without law and order our nation cannot survive. Elect us and we shall restore law and order.

-- Adolph Hitler, 1932

And now, today's headlines:

• Metro Patrols Grow as Security Tightens
• It's Time for Tougher Scrutiny, Many Subway Riders Concede
• British Police Kill Man in Subway a Day After Bomb Attempts
• Renewed Patriot Act Gets Boost in House

And now, two more quotes:

It is my impression that the Capitol is now rather more like the Kremlin during Stalin's feisty reign than a place where the citizens used to wander about and feel at home . . . We have made so many enemies all around the world that, in the name of terrorism, a quite effective police state has ever so gradually replaced the old republics. . . When the people dislike the state as much as the state dislikes them, what happens next?

-- Gore Vidal

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

-- Declaration of Independence