Home

My Purpose

Topics
   The Constitution
   Education
   Secret Combinations
   Our Decline
   Money
   Only a Virtuous People
   War
   Most Recently Added
   More...

Founding Documents
   The Declaration of Independence
   The Constitution
   The Bill of Rights
   The Articles of Confederation
   The Magna Carta

Other
   Other Resources
   Recommended Reading
   Authors
   What Others Are Saying
   How You Can Help


Police State: Trading Freedom for Security

Quotes

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” (Thomas Jefferson, To Archibald Stuart in Philadelphia 1791.)

“Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.” (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 8.)

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.” (Benjamin Franklin)

“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.” (Edmund Burke)

“I wish to say with all the earnestness I possess that when [you] see any curtailment of these liberties I have named, when you see government invading any of these realms of freedom which we have under our Constitution, you will know that they are putting shackles on your liberty, and that tyranny is creeping upon you, no matter who curtails these liberties or who invades these realms, and no matter what the reason and excuse therefore may be.” (J. Reuben Clark, Improvement Era, 1940.)

“The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights, and are the only instruments which can be used for their destruction. And certainly they would never consent to be so used were they not deceived.” (Thomas Jefferson, to John Wyche 1809.)

“Live free or die.” (Official motto of the state of New Hampsire. This motto is quite a bit different than the one we've adopted instead — Safety no matter what, even if we become slaves and loose our religion in the process.)

“The smallness of the army renders the natural strength of the community an overmatch for it; and the citizens, not habituated to look up to the military power for protection, or to submit to its oppressions, neither love nor fear the soldiery; they view them with a spirit of jealous acquiescence in a necessary evil and stand ready to resist a power which they suppose may be exerted to the prejudice of their rights.

“The continual necessity for their services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil. The inhabitants of territories, often the theater of war, are unavoidably subjected to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and by degrees the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors but as their superiors. The transition from this disposition to that of considering them masters is neither remote nor difficult; but it is very difficult to prevail upon a people under such impressions to make a bold or effectual resistance to usurpations supported by the military power.” (Alexander Hamilton, commenting on the evils of standing armies, and the superiority of armed citizens against it. Having armed citizens is implied in this article. See No. 29 for Hamilton's views regarding an armed community as a protection against standing armies. The Federalist Papers, No. 8.)

“It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it [would be] in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defense of those very rights; the principal of which…are life, liberty, and property. If men through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.” (Samuel Adams, Life of Samuel Adams, 1:504.)

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take: but as for me give me liberty or give me death!” (Patrick Henry, The War Inevitable, March 1775.)

“Liberty and free agency are worth fighting for. Patrick Henry's cry, ‘Give me liberty or give me death,’ ought to find an echo in the heart of every true Latter-day Saint.” (Marion G. Romney, Seek the Lord to Establish His Righteousness, November 10, 1964.)

“The benefits of the constitution and laws are alike for all; and the great Eloheim has given me the privilege of having the benefits of the constitution and the writ of habeas corpus.” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 5:471.)

“If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” (James Madison)

“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.” (James Madison)

“It's of more importance to community that innocence should be protected than it is that guilt should be punished” (John Adams, a principle which was supported by a belief in God, and that those who escape justice in this life, would not in the next.)

“Unhappy it is though to reflect, that a Brother's Sword has been sheathed in a Brother's breast, and that, the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with Blood, or Inhabited by Slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous Man hesitate in his choice?” (George Washington, After the battles of Lexington and Concord, Washington made the statement that it is better for our land to be drenched in blood than for us to become slaves to our own government. 1776.)

“Should we wander in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.” (Thomas Jefferson, upon repealing the “Alien and Sedition Acts”)

“I would advise persisting in our struggle for liberty, though it were revealed from Heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine men were to perish, and only one of a thousand to survive and retain his liberty. One such freeman must possess more virtue, and enjoy more happiness, than a thousand slaves.” (Samuel Adams, 1774.)

“Religion and the free exercise thereof, the right to worship God according to one's own conscience — how precious and treasured a boon it is. How necessary that it be safeguarded. Established religion becomes the guardian of the conscience of the people, the teacher of moral values, the defender of belief in the Almighty, the bridge between God and man. No people will live for long in freedom without it. The history of communism, whose founding father declared religion to be the opiate of the people, speaks with harshness and suffering concerning this basic matter.

“Congress shall not abridge ‘the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.’

“The history of tyrants is a history of the muzzling of free expression and the denial of assembly.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, Gathering of Eagles, June 20, 1991.)

“Tyrannical police states spy on their own citizens, kidnap people at will, and imprison them without bothering to charge them with crimes or even give them a trial by jury. Police states imprison innocent people, again and again and again. Then they declare kidnapped victims non-persons and torture or kill them at will.

“How do police states get away with it? From Hitler to the present, totalitarians say that we must give up our rights and freedoms because it's the only way for law enforcement to have the tools to protect us from catastrophic terrorist incidents. Of course, that's the opposite course advocated by America's Founding Fathers, like Benjamin Franklin, who counseled: ‘They that would give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.’” (Thomas Eddlem, dangeroustalk.com, 2006.)

“Today, America would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.” (Henry Kissinger, at the 1991 Bilderberger Conference held in Evians, France. 1991.)

“Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear — kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor — with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.” (General Douglas MacArthur, American Caesar, 1965.)

“[This planned destruction of agency would be] largely done during the war, under the plea of war necessity; it is to be continued after the war under the excuse — if we are not then too cowed to require an excuse — that this new political order is necessary that we may rehabilitate the world.” (J. Reuben Clark, warning the church prior to American entry into World War II, and prior to the establishment of the United Nations. Conference Report, April 1941.)

“In the war in heaven the devil advocated absolute eternal security at the sacrifice of our freedom. Although there is nothing more desirable to a Latter-day Saint than eternal security in God's presence…Today the devil as a wolf in a supposedly new suit of sheep's clothing is enticing some men, both in and out of the Church, to parrot his line by advocating planned government guaranteed security programs at the expense of our liberties. Latter-day Saints should be reminded how and why they voted as they did in heaven. If some have decided to change their vote they should repent—throw their support on the side of freedom—and cease promoting this subversion.” (Ezra Taft Benson, Secret Combinations, Conference Report, October 1961.)

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.” (John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Fuedal Law, 1965.)

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.” (Thomas Paine)

“Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of ‘Emergency’. It was a tactic of Lenin, Hitler and Mussolini.” (President Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, 1952.)

“Come, all ye lovers of liberty, break the oppressor's rod, loose the iron grasp of mobocracy, and bring to condign punishment all those who trample under foot the glorious Constitution and the people's rights. [Drawing his sword, and presenting it to heaven, he said] I call God and angels to witness that I have unsheathed my sword with a firm and unalterable determination that this people shall have their legal rights, and be protected from mob violence, or my blood shall be spilt upon the ground like water, and my body consigned to the silent tomb. While I live, I will never tamely submit to the dominion of cursed mobocracy. I would welcome death rather than submit to this oppression; and it would be sweet, oh, sweet, to rest in the grave rather than submit to this oppression, agitation, annoyance, confusion, and alarm upon alarm, any longer.” (Joseph Smith, the last speech to the Nauvoo Legion History of The Church, Volume 6, Page 500. June 1844.)

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!” (Samuel Adams, Speech, State House of Pennsylvania, August 1, 1776.)