A Quote by Thomas Jefferson
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
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Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.
The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.
If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter
Thomas Jefferson despised newspapers, with considerable justification. They printed libels and slanders about him that persist to the present day. Yet he famously said that if he had to choose between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, he would cheerfully choose to live in a land with newspapers (even not very good ones) and no government.
I would rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers.
I'd rather have newspapers and no government than government and no newspapers.
Unfortunately the situation of human rights in Iran isn't improving. Some of the newspapers were shut down and the government didn't try to reopen the newspapers that were shut down before. And the laws are as bad as before.
Thou camest out of thy mother's belly without government, thou hast liv'd hitherto without government, and thou mayst be carried to thy long home without government, when it shall please the Lord. How many people in this world live without government, yet do well enough, and are well look'd upon?
In the next place, the state governments are, by the very theory of the constitution, essential constituent parts of the general government. They can exist without the latter, but the latter cannot exist without them.
It has been raised many times whether media, corporate houses, sports bodies and NGOs should come under RTI or not. It is not up to you or me to decide. It is up to the government to decide on that.
I think my becoming a writer had much to do with spending a chunk of each year sitting by myself out in a tent without radio, without newspapers, without a whole lot of people to interact with, without anybody having any sort of similar background to me.
Why should a city be mandated to do something by the federal government or state government without the money to do it?
It is well to remember that freedom through the press is the thing that comes first. Most of us probably feel we couldn't be free without newspapers, and that is the real reason we want the newspapers to be free.
What we should be asking is not whether we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter and better government.
An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.
It is all the more necessary under a system of free government that the people should be enlightened, that they should be correctly informed, than it is under an absolute government that they should be ignorant. Under a republic the institutions of learning, while bound by the constitution and laws, are in no way subservient to the government.
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