Sam
2005-08-30 00:10:39 UTC
reposted:
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
From: Sam McClung <***@flash.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 21:51:49 GMT
Local: Wed, Oct 17 2001 4:51 pm
Subject: Why Censors Always Fail In Free Societies
For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter,
which may
involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the
consideration
of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken
away, and,
dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.
General George Washington, address to the officers of the army, Newburgh,
New York,
March 15, 1738. - The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C.
Fitzpatrick, volume
26, page 225 (1938)
I can imagine no greater disservice to the country than to establish a
system of
censorship that would deny to the people of a free republic like our own
their
indisputable right to criticise their own public officials. While exercising
the
great powers of the office I hold, I would regret in a crisis like the one
through
which we are now passing to lose the benefit of patriotic and intelligent
criticism.
President Woodrow Wilson, letter to Arthur Brisbane, APril 25, 1917. - Ray
Stannard
Baker, Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters, volume 6, page 36 (1946).
Without free speech no search for truth is possible, without free speech no
discovery
of truth is useful, without free speech progress is checked and the nations
no longer
march forward toward the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better
a
thousandfold abuse of speech than a denial of free speech. The abuse dies in
a day,
but the denial slays the life of people, and entombs the hope of the race.
Attributed to Charles Bradlaugh. - Edmund Fuller, Thesaurus of Quotations,
page 398
(1941). Unverified.
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the
long run of
history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure
weapon against
bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest
path to
wisdom is a liberal education.
A. Whitney Griswold, president of Yale, "A Little Learning," The Atlantic
Monthly,
November 1952, page 52. Address to students at Phillips Academy, Andover,
New
Hampshire, spring 1952.
Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all the outward
forms and
structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense - the sheerest
mockery. If the
press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammelled; if the
mind is
shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what
form of
government you live you are a subject and not a
citizen. Republics are not in and of themselves better than other forms of
government
except in so far as they carry with them and guarantee to the citizen that
liberty
of thought and action for which they were established.
Senator William E. Borah, remarks in the Senate, April 19, 1917,
Congressional
Record, volume 55, page 837.
Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a
land of
slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous
phone call
and hustling, pushing, and shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything
to win.
This is Nixonland. But I say to you that is not America.
Adlai E. Stevenson, The New America, ed. Seymour E. Harris, John B. Martin,
and
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., page 249 (1971) These words were written in 1956
during
Stevenson's second presidential campaign.
I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of
speech was
the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to
encourage
him to advertise the fact by speaking. It cannot be so easily discovered if
you allow
him to remain silent and look wise, but if you let him speak, the secret is
out and
the world knows that he is a fool. So it is by the exposure of folly that it
is
defeated; not by the seclusion of folly, and in this free air of free
speech men get
into that sort of communication with one another which constitutes the basis
of all
common achievement.
Woodrow Wilson, "That Quick Comradeship of Letters," address at the
Institute of
France, Paris, May 10, 1919. - The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Ray
Stannard
Baker and William E. Dodd, volume 5, page 484 (1927)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
From: Sam McClung <***@flash.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 21:51:49 GMT
Local: Wed, Oct 17 2001 4:51 pm
Subject: Why Censors Always Fail In Free Societies
For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter,
which may
involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the
consideration
of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken
away, and,
dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.
General George Washington, address to the officers of the army, Newburgh,
New York,
March 15, 1738. - The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C.
Fitzpatrick, volume
26, page 225 (1938)
I can imagine no greater disservice to the country than to establish a
system of
censorship that would deny to the people of a free republic like our own
their
indisputable right to criticise their own public officials. While exercising
the
great powers of the office I hold, I would regret in a crisis like the one
through
which we are now passing to lose the benefit of patriotic and intelligent
criticism.
President Woodrow Wilson, letter to Arthur Brisbane, APril 25, 1917. - Ray
Stannard
Baker, Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters, volume 6, page 36 (1946).
Without free speech no search for truth is possible, without free speech no
discovery
of truth is useful, without free speech progress is checked and the nations
no longer
march forward toward the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better
a
thousandfold abuse of speech than a denial of free speech. The abuse dies in
a day,
but the denial slays the life of people, and entombs the hope of the race.
Attributed to Charles Bradlaugh. - Edmund Fuller, Thesaurus of Quotations,
page 398
(1941). Unverified.
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the
long run of
history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure
weapon against
bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest
path to
wisdom is a liberal education.
A. Whitney Griswold, president of Yale, "A Little Learning," The Atlantic
Monthly,
November 1952, page 52. Address to students at Phillips Academy, Andover,
New
Hampshire, spring 1952.
Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all the outward
forms and
structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense - the sheerest
mockery. If the
press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammelled; if the
mind is
shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what
form of
government you live you are a subject and not a
citizen. Republics are not in and of themselves better than other forms of
government
except in so far as they carry with them and guarantee to the citizen that
liberty
of thought and action for which they were established.
Senator William E. Borah, remarks in the Senate, April 19, 1917,
Congressional
Record, volume 55, page 837.
Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a
land of
slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous
phone call
and hustling, pushing, and shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything
to win.
This is Nixonland. But I say to you that is not America.
Adlai E. Stevenson, The New America, ed. Seymour E. Harris, John B. Martin,
and
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., page 249 (1971) These words were written in 1956
during
Stevenson's second presidential campaign.
I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of
speech was
the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to
encourage
him to advertise the fact by speaking. It cannot be so easily discovered if
you allow
him to remain silent and look wise, but if you let him speak, the secret is
out and
the world knows that he is a fool. So it is by the exposure of folly that it
is
defeated; not by the seclusion of folly, and in this free air of free
speech men get
into that sort of communication with one another which constitutes the basis
of all
common achievement.
Woodrow Wilson, "That Quick Comradeship of Letters," address at the
Institute of
France, Paris, May 10, 1919. - The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Ray
Stannard
Baker and William E. Dodd, volume 5, page 484 (1927)