A Quote by Rex W. Tillerson

People who speak up for freedom in regimes that are repressive are often at threat. — © Rex W. Tillerson
People who speak up for freedom in regimes that are repressive are often at threat.
People who speak up for freedom in regimes that are oppressive are often a threat.
We need a more complex understanding of writers working under authoritarian or repressive regimes. Something to replace this simpleminded, Cold War-ish equation in which the dissident in exile is seen as a bold figure, and those who choose to work with restrictions on their freedom are considered patsies for repressive governments. Let's not forget that most writers in history have lived under nondemocratic regimes: Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Goethe didn't actually enjoy constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of speech.
The Bill of Rights was intended to secure freedom of speech - the freedom of speech of members of parliament to speak freely rather than be at threat of... the threat of an over powerful monarch at the time.
When you have half of Caironese in slums, when you don't have clean water, when you don't have a sewer system, when you don't have electricity, and on top of that you live under one of the most repressive regimes right now... Well, put all that together, and it's a ticking bomb. It's not of a question of threat; it is question of looking around at the present environment and making a rational prognosis.
I'm fascinated by the ways people under repressive regimes still manage to share information - and joy.
I often traveled to Nicaragua to speak against repressive policies by the Sandinista government.
Repressive regimes do not endure change willingly - and Venezuela is no exception.
I've opposed black regimes and white regimes, leftist regimes and rightist regimes. I'm close to Aristide because I have respect for him, but all that is beside the point.
The Arab awakening has been, up to now, a lot about freedom from dictatorial regimes - Syria, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain and Egypt. But once you got freedom from, then you need freedom to. Freedom from is about destroying things. Freedom to is about constructing things, constructing the rule of law.
The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach -- condemnation without discussion -- can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.
Trade, tourism, cultural exchange, and participation in international institutions all serve to erode the legitimacy of repressive regimes.
A lot of young people regard a threat against one person's sexual freedom as a threat against all of them, and that's absolutely how they should regard it. But it's heartening to look at the polls on young people on gay people, gay marriage, and sexual-freedom issues. They're terrific, and that's why the religious right is so desperately trying to lock in their current bare majority for prejudice: because their constituents are dying. They're losing votes every time the ambulance pulls up to the old folks' home. Let's hope it pulls up a little more frequently.
Rogue states are the main threat to peace and freedom, and they require a strong, comprehensive policy response - a policy that I call 'rogue state rollback,' in which our goal is not simply to contain rogue regimes, but to drive them from power.
If we look to our responsibility to the generations yet unborn who will come after us, how can we fail to recognize that peace and freedom are inextricably bound up one with another and that the threat to one is a threat to both
Humor is always important. There are people who help us deal with difficulty or hardship; from the concentration camps to the court jester, there was a need for humor. As long as these kinds of things exist, with repressive regimes, you need it to deal with the weight of daily life.
Some of the press who speak loudly about the freedom of the press are themselves the enemies of freedom. Countless people dare not say a thing because they know it will be picked up and made a song of by the press. That limits freedom.
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