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Quote of the Day: Silencing the Opposition
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” – Harry S. Truman
We have seen that before, and never more spectacularly than in Truman’s lifetime. He observed the actions of three socialist governments — the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy — over the prime of his lifetime. All three became a source of terror to its citizens and created countries where everyone lives in fear. It was what Rudyard Kipling warned about in his poem The Old Issue a generation earlier. In it, his forecast of the king “under any name”:
He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom’s name.He shall take a tribute, toll of all our ware;
He shall change our gold for arms—arms we may not bear.He shall break his judges if they cross his word;
He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord.He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring
Watchers ’neath our window, lest we mock the King—
What Truman probably never imagined was we would see a United States government attempt to follow that same path. We now have Kipling’s king — under the name of President attempting exactly that.
A politicized Department of Justice is hunting down enemies of the state in the form of pro-life activists, parents concerned about the sexualization of their children at public schools, and supporters of his presidential opponent. All are now labeled “domestic terrorists.”
The government is colluding with big tech to silence views contrary to the official government positions; preventing them from being voiced on social media platforms. Dissent from “accepted” positions on public health, transgender issues, vote fraud, and the mental acuity of the President are censored by social media with the collusion of the government. Gun control is a priority of this government as is increased taxation.
Yet all is not lost. The censors are being challenged in the courts, with people fired or canceled for unpopular views being restored to their jobs. Yesterday, Elon Musk took over Twitter, firing its chief censor. He is opening the platform to all opinions. Most importantly, a week from this upcoming Tuesday, voters get their opportunity to weigh in. They can replace their elected representatives, sending the ones favoring silencing political opponents with ones favoring free debate of the issues.
That is our last best chance of peacefully reining in a tyrannical federal government. Some say even that might not work. Even so, it needs to be tried. Get out and vote. Get your friends and relations who support freedom to vote. (I am not advocating getting friends and relations who support tyranny too drunk to vote over the next week or so, but your mileage might vary.) Take the opportunity offered. You really won’t like the alternative.
Published in Group Writing
We can vote now to restrain the power of the Federal government, but the real change would be in 2025 with a president who can effectively scale back the administrative state (maybe one with proven executive experience as the governor of a large sunny state). It’s amazing that the Democrats express so much reverence for “democracy” while ensuring that our votes mean very little as long as the bureaucrats do their own will whatever the election results.
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This post is part of the Quote of the Day (QOTD) Group Writing project on Ricochet. We welcome regular contributors and newbies who want to share a quote from the past or present and start a conversation! The October QOTD Signup Sheet is here. You may also signup up for November is here.
We all know that Dewey was the real winner…
That’s what the polls predicted.
Great Post
So where is our hallowed Supreme Court that is oh so concerned about it’s “legitimacy”?
I suppose those who are hauled away in a dawn hour raid by the Biden Stasi have no “standing”.
I have voted. Early. In person.
Vote early. Vote often.
Especially when your name is on the ballot.
We have to overcome the Chinese who back Biden because they have the goods on him and he must keep them happy. They must be surprised that so much just flows in their favor without having to do much. Maybe that helps them deploy more resources to complete the takeover of Latin America which is clearly happening. I simply don’t know and I’m not plugged in enough to US power sources to know what kind of legal voting support the Democrats actually have. If they were confident they had things in the bag would they use so much illegal action to enhance their leverage? The few Democrats I personally know will support any Democrat before they would support any Republican. Do we know what the impact is of all networks supporting Democrats. If they successfully take the next election does the US have a future as a 50 state country?
To give you an idea how recent this is, his daughter Margaret gave him 5 grandchildren, the oldest is only sixty-five.
This brings up a question, for those in their twenties that have children, and later on grandchildren, what country are they going to be looking at?
I wish I could give your comment multiple “likes.” It really hits at the heart of the post. I wonder at how much the country has changed since I was in my twenties, with young children. It has not all been bad, and at this point I would rather be here than then. Still, unless we can defeat the forces of tyranny, we will, as Churchill forecast, “sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”
You are clearly a threat to our democracy.
I fear it is too late. We had Trump and the GOPe worked against him.
There is not appetite for anything but power in DC.
I’ll vote like a good soldier, of course. I just question if it will matter.
Don’t give up. I think we are closer to victory than we realize.
However, even if we get a massive victory on November 9, it will just be a beginning. Think of it as the battle of Midway. Four Japanese fleet carriers sunk. A major victory. However the war went on for another three years and three months. If November 9 is our Midway, we still have at least three years of hard fighting ahead. A Presidential win and Republican sweep in 2024 would be the equivalent of the battle of Leyte. Even then, it took Japan almost a year more to surrender.
Pearl Harbor was in 1937 in my reckoning.
Truman called Republicans Nazis. The idea that Truman was for free speech is a laugh. The man was as bad as FDR when it came to advancing the State ruling us all.
Can we get to nukes already?
There’s no doubt that when Truman was in partisan mode, he could say some outragious things. During the 1952 campaign, he alienated Eisenhower with his comments, and Eisehhower refused to have tea with him before the ride to the inauguration ceremony where Eisenhower took office.
I’m not a fan of Truman’s domestic policies. Probably the worst thing he did in office, by my lights, was when he took federal control over steel mills during a strike. It was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court and he backed down.
But I’m not aware of any instance where he advocated censorship of the federal government. Remember too, that the McCarthy hearings, and the related House Un-American Activities Commitee hearings were Republican initiatives. The HUAC hearings are what brought Richard Nixon to national prominence.
Maybe the best thing he did was override calls for massive government-owned housing projects, opting instead for the FHA and incentives for individuals to purchase their own homes. He helped turn the US from a nation of renters to a nation of homeowners.
The song “Little Boxes” was written by an advocate of Soviet-style housing.
The problem is I do not see how electing GOP helps. The federal government is a Democrat organization. It answers to Democrats and attacks everybody else. If a GOP POTUS does make it past the obvious corrupt election system they will immediately be impeached for something. Attacked by MSM for made up stuff. Anybody that works for them sent to jail for whatever they can make up. Even lawyers do not want defend GOP because of the blow back. Heck, even being killed by one of our government agencies is possible