Governments hold a MONOPOLY on coercive power. The ONLY nonviolent checks against this power are the freedoms of speech and the press.
"No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will…. Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."Tyrant-wannabe Krauthammer salivates at the unarmed and defenseless going through CREATIVE mental torture devised by the coercive-power monopolist.
"If virtuous, [the government] need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics."
"I am... against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents. …error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
"A right of free correspondence between citizen and citizen on their joint interests, whether public or private and under whatsoever laws these interests arise, is a natural right… it is... one of the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established."
"[Let us] go on in doing with [the] pen what in other times was done with the sword, [and] show that reformation is more practicable by operating on the mind than on the body of man."
-- Thomas Jefferson
When the police and armed forces become protectors of Goliaths bashing unarmed citizens, the latter will have no choice but to put into effect the purpose of the 2nd Amendment.
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
“A people unwilling to use extreme violent force to preserve or obtain their liberty, deserves the tyrants that rule them.”
-- Thomas Jefferson
6 comments:
I'm curious Ilyn: if Assange is not guilty of treason...then what do you see as an act of treason?
I should have added: I didn't mean my question to you to imply that I see Assange as treasonous. This is one story that has gotten away from me and I haven't been following it closely enough to form an objective view about it. I simply wanted your assessment of what constitutes treason.
Treason is an act that undermines freedom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K42AZUK84GQ&feature=player_embedded
Gingrich: SPEECH INFRINGER! Power luster!
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the WikiLeaks exposés are embarrassing and awkward but would not significantly complicate US foreign policy. Yet, tyrant-wannabes, like Gingrich, lust to gestapo Julian Assange.
http://ilynross.blogspot.com/2010/12/tyrant-wannabe-charles-krauthammer.html
Uploaded on Nov 30, 2010 - Asked about the release of 250,000 U.S. Government documents by the website Wikileaks, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the revelations were embarrassing and awkward but he added that the consequences of their release would be fairly modest. (Nov. 30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FnIhYBJmiM
“No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." - Thomas Jefferson
Another difference between public and government: "Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." -> Where there is no coercion (e.g. no government interference), reason is left free to combat the irrational. But where there's government/legal-coercion in the realms of conscience, bedroom, uterus, science, economics, education, art..., there are only slaves and masters.
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