A Quote by Alexander Hamilton
The experience of past ages may inform us, that when the circumstances of a people render them distressed, their rulers generally recur to severe, cruel, and oppressive measures. Instead of endeavoring to establish their authority in the affection of their subjects, they think they have no security but in their fear.
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But, historians, and even common sense, may inform us, that, however specious these ideas of perfect equality may seem, they are really, at bottom, impracticable; and were they not so, would be extremely pernicious to human society. Render possessions ever so equal, men's different degrees of art, care, and industry will immediately break that equality. Or if you check these virtues, you reduce society to the most extreme indigence; and instead of preventing want and beggary in a few, render it unavoidable to the whole community.
At times when people fear death, they go along with measures that they believe, rightly or wrongly, will save them - even if that means a loss of freedom. Such measures have been popular in the past.
Civility is a work of the imagination, for it is through the imagination that we render others sufficiently like ourselves for them to become subjects of tolerance and respect, if not always affection.
How can a good God appoint cruel people to positions of authority? The answer is simple: God is the originator of the authority, but He is not the author of the cruelty. Man is responsible for his cruel actions, not God. All authority is of God, but not all authority is godly.
People are prone to taking mental shortcuts. They may know that they shouldn't give out certain information, but the fear of not being nice, the fear of appearing ignorant, the fear of a perceived authority figure - all these are triggers, which can be used by a social engineer to convince a person to override established security procedures.
We fear the past, present and future. We fear the unknown, we fear not having enough, losing what we have, not having what we want. We fear what will become of us and those that we care for. We fear what others think of us and what they don't think of us. We fear, fear, fear and therefore we are controllable through the manipulation of all that we fear. The present War on Terror is the War of Fear. No Fear, no control.
I think the most useful thing you can do as a writer is to reconstruct real life with all its color, hardship, joy, and intrigue. If you're interested in people, you honor them best, I think, by making the fullest possible picture of them. Your subjects may - and from my experience probably will - protest your portrait of them.
The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes of the ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in an appeal to us;– they implore us to think more of the character of our people than of its numbers; to look upon our vast natural resources, not as tempters to ostentation and pride, but as means to be converted by the refining alchemy of education into mental and spiritual treasures; ...and thus give to the world the example of a nation whose wisdom increases with its prosperity, and whose virtues are equal to its power.
Measures of policy are necessarily controlled by circumstances; and, consequently, what may be wise and expedient under certain circumstances might be eminently unwise and impolitic under different circumstances. To persist in acting in the same way under circumstances essentially different would be folly and obstinacy, and not consistency.
Use gentle methods to get whatever good you can from priests and monks who are slaves, as well as from merchants and captives. Resort to severe measures only in extreme cases, for fear lest the hardship they are already enduring in their state of captivity, joined to the strictness you might want to exercise in virtue of your authority, drive them to despair. . . . It is not light they need, but strength, and strength permeates through the external balm of words and good example.
Instead of harboring fear and suspicion we need to think of other people not as ‘them’ but ‘us’.
I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
The burden of the past is only, I think, oppressive when you've got to go on the experience of the avant garde.
I'm not saying that all women are blameless - all women are not. There are women with despicable characters who are cruel and terrible and some of them are mothers. But why do we blame our mothers more than our fathers? We let our fathers get away scot-free. We hardly even knew who they were in many cases, given the way this culture raises kids, and they may have been quite cruel. They may even have raped us as children, but even if they raped us, we will blame our mothers for not protecting us instead of blaming our fathers who actually did it.
How are we going to know what sounds are important before we've even heard those sounds? It's an absurd question. The only thing we can say is that we're going to base it on our past experience. In other words, modern listening doesn't inform us of anything new. It simply keeps us in the past.
Dominion by land or sea will appear equally destitute of attraction, when it comes to be generally understood, that all its advantages rest with the rulers, and that the subjects at large derive no benefit whatever.
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