The whole point of free speech is not to make ideas exempt from criticism but to expose them to it.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

No one said it like Frederick Douglass.

I think slaves and several factions of current society have much in common. In general, the whole working class of any country is closely analogous to slaves. That's why I have been attracted to the thoughts of Frederick Douglass, to whom all of us in America, not just descendants of slaves, owe a debt.

Within this speech Frederick Douglass says: “America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.” Hear, hear.

At other times, Douglass said the following things:

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.

Speaking of irony...

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.

There was a time when the Republican Party more or less stood for those principles.

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.

To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

4 comments:

larry kurtz said...

Bob:

I'm trying to figure out how to get this link to you in one piece.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/
display/web/2010/03/29/midmorning2/

Thad Wasson said...

Men are controlled two ways, one by violence and the other is to be seduced and offered things. The USA falls under the latter.

Bob Newland said...

Thad, if the US gummint wants you to do something or not to do something, it might try to make you think you are being seduced or bought, but if that doesn't work, the gummint has no problem torturing or killing you.

Neal said...

Larry, check out a site called tinyurl.com -- it'll take a long link and make it short.