A Quote by Edward Snowden
How do we preserve our civil rights, our traditions as a liberal democracy, in a time when government power is expanding and is more and more difficult to check?
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Education is 'the guardian genius of our democracy.' Nothing really means more to our future, not our military defenses, not our missiles or our bombers, not our production economy, not even our democratic system of government. For all of these are worthless if we lack the brain power to support and sustain them.
Athletes have the same rights everybody else does. If there is a strength in our democracy, it's that we are encouraged to exercise those rights and speak out and hold people in power in check.
The opinions of men should not be the object of any government. Our civil rights are no more dependent on our religious beliefs than they are dependent upon our thoughts about geometry or physics!
As a conservative who believes in limited government, I believe the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press. A free press ensures the flow of information to the public, and let me say, during a time when the role of government in our lives and in our enterprises seems to grow every day--both at home and abroad - ensuring the vitality of a free and independent press is more important than ever.
It isn't possible to give government just a little control over the economy and our lives. Once we cede that power to government, it uses the power to take more from us. That's why every year the government controls more of our lives.
Rights are not the language of democracy. Compromise is what democracy is about. Rights are the language of freedom, and are absolute because their role is to protect our liberty. By using the absolute power of freedom to accomplish reforms of democracy, we have undermined democracy and diminished our freedom.
I saw in States' rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy.... Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.
The media is absolutely essential to the functioning of a democracy. It's not our job to cozy up to power. We're supposed to be the check and balance on government.
For good or for bad, India has rejected a more totalitarian approach to how it will deal with its social problems. We would starve but we would not give up our democracy and our love for our freedoms and to deal with these problems in an atmosphere of democracy and the rule of law without necessarily going, sort of resorting to civil disobedience or any kind of violent revolution.
We want to preserve and aggressively grow our arts in West Virginia while at the same time making our education department, and government, more efficient and responsive.
I do not accept that we cannot find a common sense way to preserve our traditions, including our basic second amendment freedoms and the rights of law abiding gun owners, while at the same time reducing the gun violence that unleashes so much mayhem on a regular basis.
We, the People of this country, have no unalienable rights... all our rights are subject to modification... the Constitution of the United States of America is nothing more than a piece of paper and... our government should not be restrained by the Constitution because our government can do good things for people.
If by a "Liberal," they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties - someone who believes that we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say that I'm a "Liberal."
Yes, the rise in corporate power had roots in the gearing up for the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was a Whig, a supporter of government aid to expanding industry - to "internal improvements" that supported the growth of business. He was an early capitalist, not one who wanted to preserve some rural paradise.
The more we come to rely on government, the fewer freedoms we will enjoy. Government will start dictating what we can own, eat and drive, how much of our money they will let us keep, how we run our businesses, how many - if any - guns we can own, and what we may and may not say. Oh, wait! They are already doing that. To preserve freedom we must fight for it.
Americans' liberty is perishing beneath the constant growth of government power. Federal, state and local government's are confiscating citizens' property, trampling their rights, and decimating their opportunities more than ever before.... American liberty can still be rescued from the encroachments of government. The first step to saving our liberty is to realize how much we have already lost, how we lost it, and how we will continue to lose unless fundamental political changes occur.
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