CATEGORIZED QUOTATIONS, PART 7

FREEDOM, PATRIOTISM, PARANOIA, DEFIANCE, DIPLOMACY, INCARCERATION

DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES CONTAIN MATERIAL OF A POLITICAL NATURE WHICH SOME MAY FIND OFFENSIVE!

FREEDOM

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

— Justice Louis D. Brandeis

"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one."

— A. J. Liebling

"A people or a class which is cut off from its own past is far less free to choose and to act as a people or class than one that has been able to situate itself in history."

— Peter Smith, from Ways of Seeing (p. 33)

"Warriors never tolerate enslavement to anyone or anything."

— Forrest E. Morgan

"All laws which can be violated without doing anyone any injury are laughed at."

— Spinoza

"Men may be without restraints upon their liberty; they may pass to and fro at pleasure; but if their steps are tracked by spies and informers, their words noted down for crimination, their associates watched as conspirators — who should say that they are free?"

— Sir Thomas May

"Being socially proper is more important than possessing a fresh, uncompromised soul. Being acceptable to our neighbors is often more important than being acceptable to ourselves. The price of freedom is often rejection, even banishment."

— Gerry Spence

"A man without privacy is a man without dignity."

— Sir Zelman Cowen

"The Internet watches you while you’re sleeping."

— From Mad TV’s "Reading Railroad"

"If science produces no better fruits than tyranny . . . I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest, and estimable as our neighboring savages are."

— Thomas Jefferson, 1812

"A state of society where men may not speak their minds, where children denounce their parents to the police . . . such a state of society cannot long endure."

— Winston Churchill

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?"

— Patrick Henry

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."

— George Bernard Shaw

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

— Benjamin Franklin

"Anyone who surrenders his arms because of a cry for public safety does not deserve freedom . . . No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms . . . Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes."

— Thomas Jefferson

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence. To ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good."

— George Washington

"Prohibition . . . goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes . . . A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."

— Abraham Lincoln

"When privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy."

— anonymous

"Assassination: the extreme form of censorship."

— George Bernard Shaw

"The rights of man, that Thomas Paine defended, were being assailed on every hand by selfishness, ambition, and tyranny."

— Manly P. Hall

"200 years ago, a gentleman carried a pistol with him wherever he went, and many respectable folks carried big knives as well. Our founding fathers grew vast fields of hemp, and cannabis was widely used for medicinal purposes. Carrying arms and smoking weed were socially acceptable activities. Nowadays, if you are 'stopped and frisked' and an unlicenced derringer or a well-packed bowl is found, you’ll be branded as a criminal deviant and locked in a cage. Our rights of self-defense and self-medication have been stripped from us, and these unjust 'laws' will be enforced with physical violence."

— anonymous (RWT)

"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."

— St. George Tucker, from Blackstone’s Commentaries (1803)

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

— Wendell Phillips (1852)

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? . . . I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

— Patrick Henry

"There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack . . . The U.S. Constitution was written by men who had just been through a long, incredibly nasty war. They did not consider the Bill of Rights a frivolous luxury, to be in force only in times of peace and prosperity, put aside when the going gets tough."

— Molly Ivins

"The Swiss are most armed and most free."

— Machiavelli

"I don’t agree with what you’re saying — but I’ll die for your right to say it."

— Bob Franks

"Today, those who enjoy the greatest freedom are those who have the wherewithal to buy it. At last, even freedom, has become a commodity, indeed, an item of luxury."

— Gerry Spense

"The great and direct end of government is liberty. Secure our liberties and privileges, and the end of government is answered. If this be not effectively done, government is an evil."

— Patrick Henry, speech against the U.S. Constitution, June 25, 1788

"We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear those words I say to myself, ‘That man is a Red, that man is a Communist.’ You never heard a real American talk in that manner."

— Frank Hague, Mayor of Jersey City, January 12, 1938

"If authority implies submission, liberation implies equality; authority exists when one man obeys another, and liberty exists when men do not obey other men. Thus, to say that authority exists is to say that class and caste exist, that submission and inequality exist. To say that liberty exists is to say that classlessness exists, to say that brotherhood and equality exist."

— Hagbard Celine

"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature."

— Samuel Adams

"‘Necessity’ is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

— William Pitt (1783)

"In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere."

— Abraham Lincoln

"I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction."

— Ayn Rand, from Anthem

"Freedom is fragile and must be protected.   To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it."

— Germaine Greer

"Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds."

— Pearl Buck, from What America Means to Me

"There are only two kinds of freedom in the world: the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces possessions."

— Anais Nin

"When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again."

— Edith Hamilton, from The Greek Way

"Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior."

— Mary McCarthy

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority."

— Ayn Rand, from The Virtue of Selfishness

"Despite the global nature of the World Wide Web, Washington is obsessed with finding ways to monitor and control it. Apparently the free flow of news, opinions and information makes politicians, bureaucrats and law enforcement officials nervous. . . . The purpose of this propaganda campaign is obvious — to create public support for government regulation of the Internet, including the power to monitor all transmissions and shut down those it deems offensive. . . . The corporate media has responded with lurid stories about online child molesters trolling for young victims, pedophiles swapping digital kiddie porn, and international criminals using encrypted e-mails to plot worldwide reigns of terror."

— Jim Redden, from Snitch Culture (p. 161)

"It was the spirit of liberty which made our American civilization. That spirit made the Constitution. If that spirit is gone the Constitution is gone, even though its words remain. . . . Whatever that change may be, it must be clear of those confusions which impair the great safeguards of human liberty. There must never be confusion in the Bill of Rights, the balance of power, local government, and a government of laws, not of men."

— Herbert Hoover

"We are free and prosperous because we have inherited political and value systems fabricated by a particular set of eighteenth-century intellectuals who happened to get it right. But we have lost touch with those intellectuals, and with anything like intellectualism, even to the point of not reading books anymore, though we are literate."

— Neal Stephenson, from In the Beginning . . . Was the Command Line (p. 53)

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

— John Stuart Mill, from On Liberty

"When liberty is gone,

Life grows insipid and has lost its relish."

— Joseph Addison

"You have plenty of rights in this country, provided you don’t get caught exercising them."

— Terry Mitchell, from The Revolutionary Toker

"He that has gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion will not feel himself quite secure until he has also drawn his teeth."

— Charles Caleb Colton (1825)

"To make one’s own rules is the highest freedom."

— Martin Heidigger

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery . . ."

— Bob Marley

PATRIOTISM:

"All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.  It works the same in any country."

— Hermann Goering

"We must guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism, especially that patriotism which is the last refuge of scoundrels and which is so prevalent, so professional, and so well paid nowadays."

— George Seldes (1938)

"America’s become a place where they wave a flag at you and expect your brains to go out the window."

— from an old copy of Whisper

"No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach."

— W. C. Brann, The Iconoclast

"How can a man be said to have a country when he has no right to a square inch of it?"

— Henry George, Social Problems

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

— Johnson (Boswell’s Life for the year 1775)

"A statesman is an easy man, he tells his lies by rote.

A journalist invents his lies, and rams them down your throat.

So stay at home and drink your beer and let the neighbors vote."

— William Butler Yeats

"Here’s a good example of how the meaning of a word can change drastically over time. Fifty years ago, a 'patriotic' individual was perceived as someone, usually a former serviceman, who loved their country, flew the flag on national holidays, and was proud to sing the National Anthem. Nowadays, however, the word 'patriot' implies that someone is a violently deranged, ultra-right-wing fanatic with a stockpile of illegal weapons and a seething hatred for minorities, foreigners, liberals, teenagers, and the Federal Government. It has become an accusation rather than a compliment."

— anonymous (RWT)

"The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be curtailed. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt."

— Cicero (110 B.C.)

"The great fear in the hearts of these men of all nationalities was the same — the dread of awakening to the Individual Spirit within them through which they would see that all their cherished patriotic ideals were no more than a deadly tissue of dreams."

— Trevor Ravenscroft, from The Spear of Destiny (p. 137)

"To some people, not only was my book out of order, my whole life was out of order — there was something unpatriotic, subversive, dangerous, in my criticism of so much that went on in this society."

— Howard Zinn, from You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (p. 3)

"We should behave toward our country as women behave toward the men they love. A loving wife will do anything for her husband except stop criticizing and trying to improve him. We should cast the same affectionate but sharp glance at our country."

— J. B. Priestley

"It’s kinda difficult to be patriotic when our ‘elected officials’ keep pissing on our heads and tell us it’s raining."

— anonymous (RWT)

"American patriotism is generally something that amuses Europeans, I suppose because children look idiotic saluting the flag and because the constitution contains so many cracks through which the lawyers may creep."

— Katharine Whitehorn

"It is high time that we had lights that are not incendiary torches."

— George Sand (1863)

"I question whether I want to be integrated into America as it stands now, with its complacency and materialism, its soullessness."

— Paule Marshall

"When fascism comes to this country, it’s going to be wrapped in an American flag."

— Huey Long (early 1930's)

"A machine organization took charge of the fountains of public information, supervised the molding of mass psychology, and saw that the people were permitted to read only such statements as would inflame their minds with warlike frenzy and kindle their hatred of the foe."

— Stanton A. Coblentz, from From Arrow to Atom Bomb (p. 394)

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

— from the Declaration of Independence, 1776

"It’s an obscene comparison, but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people’s necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tire of patriotism put around your neck."

— Dan Rather

"We are not content with negative obedience, not even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will."

— George Orwell, from 1984

"A free people must have a government that embodies the ideals of that people. . . . A suicidal national government, a government that seems bent on devouring its people rather than nurturing them, forfeits our allegiance."

— Ernest Callenbach, from Ecotopia Emerging (pg. 252)

"As for the Pledge of Allegiance, I choose not to say it. I salute the flag each morning as a symbol of what this country is supposed to be, but I can’t say the Pledge. I am sorry to say that I don’t believe this country offers liberty and justice for all. I will continue to work toward that end, but until I see it happening, I will not say the Pledge."

— "Ms. Finney," from The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, by Paula Danzinger (p. 111)

"While you may be pledging allegiance to some noble idea, don’t let that blind you to the fact that your cherished group, organization, or country may also have a questionable and immoral history as well."

— Wallace Wang, from Steal This Computer Book 3 (p. 60)

"The true citizenship is to protect the flag from dishonor — to make it the emblem of a nation that is known to all nations as true and honest and honorable. And we should forever forget that old phrase — ‘my country, right or wrong, my country!’"

— Mark Twain

 PARANOIA

"The problem with any group is that if you do not belong, it becomes a ‘they.’ The word itself has power, a collective authority: for some mysterious reason, ‘they say’ carries more weight than ‘we say.’ ‘They’ provokes unease, if not paranoia (‘They’re out to get me.’)."

— Christine Andreae, from Grizzly (p. 108)

"We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptions are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance — and we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yey to bring such piece in — in such a case we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck."

— Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Springfield, June 16^th, 1858

"It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you."

— unknown

"It’s not paranoia, that’s not it. But I watch people."

— anonymous, from Connie Fletcher’s What Cops Know (p. 167)

"Every friend can be a potential enemy, and every enemy a potential friend."

— unknown

"I learned long ago that the only person I could count on was myself."

— unknown

"Offer not your right hand easily to anyone."

— Pythagoras

"Paranoia is a state of heightened awareness. Most people are persecuted beyond their wildest delusions."

— Claude Steiner

"Don’t trust, don’t beg, don’t fear."

— Spetsnaz credo (originated in Soviet prisons centuries ago

"Everyone and everything was feared. The neighbors in your building, the caretaker in your building, your own children. People lived in fear of their co-workers, those above them, those beneath them, and those on the same level. They feared oversights or mistakes on the job, but even more they feared being too successful, standing out."

— Ovesyenko, on Stalin’s Great Purge

"I say it has gone too far. We are dividing into the hunted and the hunters. There is loose in the United States today the same evil that once split Salem Village between the bewitched and the accused and stole men’s reason quite away. We are informers to the secret police. Honest men are spying on their neighbors for patriotism’s sake. We may be sure that for every honest man two dishonest ones are spying for personal advancement today and ten will be spying for pay next year."

— Bernard De Voto (1949)

"Drink nothing without seeing it; sign nothing without reading it."

— Spanish proverb

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

— Arthur Bloch

"If They want to take you out discretely, They likely won’t shoot you with a sniper rifle or plant a bomb under your car — not when it’s so much simpler just to either run you over or bump you off the road. If you live in the city, perhaps you’ll be fatally ‘mugged.’ Maybe your bedroom will fill up with ether one night — it’ll knock you right out, and the fire will eliminate any evidence. If They want to discredit you, a syringe full of cocaine hydrochloride solution squirted up your nostril will make your heart explode within minutes — or They could substitute a massive dose of LSD to fry your brains and land you in an institution. If They really want to get nasty, They’ve been known to contaminate cushions and mattresses with plutonium dust and spray the contents of refrigerators with concentrated pesticide — this can result in liver failure or rare forms of cancer, and an overworked medical examiner will likely attribute your untimely death to natural causes."

— Jake Bishop

"Project Coast included the development of a bizarre range of biological agents and delivery systems for individual murders that would have been the envy of the Borgias. There were cholera organisms by the millions and anthrax planted in the gum of envelopes, into the filters of cigarettes, and inside chocolates. There was thallium and ricin and organo-phosphates; there was snake venom, paratyphoid, Plague, Hepatitis A, HIV, and the terrible Ebola and Marburg viruses. There was botulinum toxin secreted inside beer bottles and Salmonella germs hidden in sugar. Most of the ‘bugs’ were freeze-dried, where possible, for more effective use."

— Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg, from Plague Wars (p, 255)

"The toxic information is spreading. There’s no way to contain it. Your only choice is to destroy the credibility of that person. You have to put a stain on his character. And what’s the worst stain a guy can have right now? Being linked to terrorism. So you blow up the guy’s house and say it was a bomb factory. . . . Even if the guy survives, no one will ever believe him."

— Neal Stephenson, from Zodiac (p, 219)

"The informants changed the entire culture of the movement, it started out very open and trusting, but, after we realized we had been infiltrated, people became paranoid, fearful, and distrustful. Before too long, the movement became just like the society it was protesting."

— Stew Albert, in reference to the peace movement of the 60s

"Particularly significant has been the high-level penetration we have achieved of Klan organizations. At the present time, there are 14 Klan groups in existence. We have penetrated every one of them through informants (and) currently are operating informants in top-level positions of leadership in seven of them."

— excerpted from a letter from the FBI to a White House assistant, dated September 2. 1965

". . . according to criminal justice experts, many of the people who have been convicted on drug charges are innocent. The pressure to snitch is so great that a large number of informants simply make up accusations against friends, associates — even family members — to escape the long mandatory minimum sentences."

— Jim Redden, from Snitch Culture (pp. 195-196)

"There is no War on Crime. There is no War on Drugs. There is no War on Terrorism. There is no War on Youth Violence. There is only the ongoing effort by the federal government to collect as much information on as many people as possible. Domestic law enforcement initiatives are merely excuses to increase the amount of spying on the American people."

— Jim Redden, from Snitch Culture (p. 60)

"By the end of the school year which included the Columbine shootings, over 3 million students had been suspended or expelled, many for doing or saying things which had never been considered a problem before. . . . During the last few weeks of the school year, American Civil Liberties Union offices across the nation were swamped with complaints from students and their parents. . . . many schools across the country spent the summer months developing new snitch programs. . . . A category called ‘Early Warning Signs of Violence’ urges parents and students to turn in students for such normal adolescent behavior as ‘social withdrawal’ and ‘low interest in school.’. . . Students who express ‘intolerance for difference or prejudicial attitudes’ are also supposed to be reported, along with any who have ‘inappropriate access to, possession of and use of firearms.’"

— Jim Redden, from Snitch Culture (pp. 135-137)

"Once an entry is made into official computer files, nothing can dislodge it."

— from the San Francisco Chronicle, May 11, 1993

"Even if you use a file-shredding program consistently, law enforcement officials can always use a variety of computer forensic tools to pry out any secrets your deleted files may be hiding. So how can you protect your computer from their prying eyes? Basically, you can’t. While you can make recovering data harder by periodically purging your cache directory and only storing files on removable disks (such as floppy or ZIP disks) and physically destroying them afterwards, just remember that everything you do on your computer can be recovered and examined later."

— Wallace Wang, from Steal This Computer Book 3 (p. 260)

"Observe the street prior to leaving home to see if your house is being watched. . . . When checking to determine if you are being followed, do not turn around in a conspicuous manner. Instead, casually glance to the rear while crossing the street, lighting a cigarette, unfolding a newspaper, entering or leaving a shop."

— from Total Resistance by Major H. Von Dach (p. 113)

"The material to be passes would be placed in a magnetic key box, the kind you can buy at any auto parts store. To load the drop, you just stuck the magnetic box to the underside of the pay phone’s shelf while making a call or looking up a number. The box is always stuck in a predetermined spot on the shelf. . . . The ‘loader’ makes his ‘load’ signal as he departs. . . . No one needs to know the identity of anyone else, especially between cells, and in the event of capture and interrogation, it helps minimize the knowledge any one operator can give up."

— Eric L. Haney, from Inside Delta Force (p. 132)

"If you find a listening device or something you think might be, first of all, leave it alone for now. Don’t say anything to alert the listener that you have found it. . . . never assume that it is the only one. Always assume that there are others. . . . Look for surveillance vans. Is there always a van parked near you? Or a panel truck or a pickup with a camper? . . . If you see a van pull up and stop, watch it for a while. If the driver doesn’t get out and go somewhere, then someone is probably watching someone. Use binoculars to watch them, but don’t let them see you. See if they seem to be there in shifts."

— M. L. Shannon, from Don’t Bug Me (pp. 44-45, 69)

"You should be wary of unanticipated, odd-shaped, or odd-colored packages mailed to you. These may be devices used by someone who is trying to identify you — you would be easy to spot walking out of the building with this unusual package."

— anonymous, from New I.D. in America (p. 55)

"The tactics by law enforcement agencies in the past have been to arrest these high profile artists on gun violations. Leaving them in a ‘Catch-22' situation to violate parole by defending themselves. Or leaving them defenseless, making them easy prey . . ."

— Mutulu Shakur

". . . this heightened vigilance can become paranoia. In this state a man’s perceptions are amplified like an overloaded electronic system. We start to short-circuit. We experience danger where there is none, or exaggerate present dangers."

— Robert Moore & Douglas Gillette, from The Warrior Within (p. 111)

"On Monday, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a terrorism warning asking all Americans to be on high alert this week. Then on Friday, he announced that the period of high alert would be extended indefinitely. I think I speak for all Americans when I say, ‘Bitch, I can’t be any more alert than I already am, okay?’ I’m opening my mail with salad tongs; I take my passport in the shower with me; I am watching so much CNN I am having sex dreams about Wolf Blitzer."

— Tina Fey, on Saturday Night Live’s "Weekend Update"

"Every family in Amerika should prepare themselves for terrorist attack."

— Tom Ridge, extolling the virtues of plastic wrap and duct tape (as well as promoting hysteria) on a recent Department of Heimland Defense television commercial

". . . she was terribly frightened, already depressed, acutely conscious of all her physiological processes, and imagining all sorts of things. That’s the way it always begins. If you become acutely conscious of your visceral organs and functions — heart, kidneys, respiration — no matter how sound they are, they’ll soon begin to bother you. Add ordinary fear, and you’ll be ill. Add superstitious terror, and you’ll crack up completely."

— William Seabrook, from Witchcraft (p. 93)

"My own information is that the IMF and World Bank were taken over by a space alien named Larry. It’s obvious that ‘Larry’ Summers, once World Bank chief economist, later US Treasury Secretary, is in reality a platoon of extraterrestrials sent here to turn much of the human race into a source of cheap protein."

— Greg Palast, from The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (p. 48)

"I love my country, but I fear my government."

— seen on a bumpersticker

"Evil beings can create an aura of peace around themselves and their homes. It is not a real peace, but a projection, done intentionally so as to encourage others to relax in their presence and trust them. Other evil ones have no charisma at all. They may be so dull, so lifeless, as to be remarkable only for their drabness. This keeps them hidden. . . . Religion is often a cover for evil. What safer disguise for evil than to present itself as a nun, a missionary? . . . Anyone can be evil, and no-one and nothing is beyond evil’s reach. Our naive attitude regarding particular religions and certain professions, such as counselors, those who give free meals to the homeless, and other apparently blameless endeavors, gets us into trouble all the time."

— Anderson Reed, from Shouting at the Wolf (pp. 72-74)

"Man is engaged all his life in bitter warfare with a million energies that conspire to kill him. Let him rest upon his weapons, let him relax his vigilance, let him commit his defense to the Power that has organized the attacking forces, and he is gone."

— Ambrose Bierce, from The Devil’s Advocate

"Everyone is a killer

I look at all of them now

I search out their eyes

I let them know that I’ll kill them back

They take one look and they know I mean it

I lock the door behind me

Everything that moves begs me to attack it . . .

Now I walk the streets like a secret animal . . .

The one who fucks with me

Will lose his throat

He’ll have no idea what he’s fucking with

I live on the outskirts of humanity

I am scarred for the rest of my time here

That’s all it is to me

Time left here

Time spent walking the city filth

Breathing in and out and keeping my teeth sharp

Waiting for something horrible to happen again."

— Henry Rollins, from The Portable Henry Rollins (pp. 147-148)

 DEFIANCE

"A rebel is simply someone who says "no.""

— unknown

"One should respect public opinion in so far as it is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

— Bertrand Russell

"No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield."

— Milton, from Paradise Lost

"They’ve got us surrounded again, the poor bastards."

— General Creighton W. Abrams

"I’ve got ‘em right where I want ‘em — surrounded from the inside."

— Sgt 1at Class Jerry "Mad Dog" Shriver

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."

— Noah Webster (1888)

"We would rather die on our feet than live on our knees."

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

"I’d rather die,

Than give you control!"

— Trent Reznor, from "Head Like a Hole" by Nine Inch Nails

"You’ll never take me alive, coppers!"

— paraphrased from innumerable low-budget gangster movies

"More than 2,000 heavily armed German soldiers and police were backed by tanks and artillery. The 700 to 750 ghetto fighters had a few dozen pistols and hand grenades. Yet in three days of street battles, the Germans were unable to defeat the Jewish combatants."

— from a plaque at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

"Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

— John Locke (1690)

"Don’t believe the Church and State, and everything they tell you;

Believe in Me, I’m with the High Command . . ."

— from "Silent Running," by Mike and the Mechanics

"A poet will even face death when he sees his people oppressed."

— Carolina Maria de Jesus

"I always slept in my clothes, for I never knew what might happen. Not even my incarceration in a damp underground dungeon will make me give up the fight in which I am engaged for liberty and for the rights of the working people. To be shut from the sunlight is not pleasant but . . . I shall stand firm. To be in prison is no disgrace."

— Mother Jones

"There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive."

— Harriet Tubman

"No-one attacks me with impunity."

— motto of Scotland, as well as the "Order of the Thistle"

"Go ahead! Send your ninjas against me! I got sumpthin’ for ‘em . . ."

— Jazzman, into a phone he believed was tapped, on a really bad day

"There are approximately 20,000 high-speed pursuits each year — of these, 40% terminate when the fleeing suspect crashes his vehicle. Every day, an average of one fleeing suspect dies as a result of his vehicle crashing."

— statistics provided by The Learning Channel (paraphrased)

"Mandatory gun registration would make instant criminals out of millions of law-abiding citizens. Confiscation laws could lead to civil war. The American people own more than 250 million handguns and rifles of all kinds, including hundreds of thousands of fully automatic machine guns. Firearms can be found in nearly half of all households, with a large share in rural areas. Many gun owners would undoubtedly refuse to go along with such laws."

— Jim Redden, from Snitch Culture (p. 231)

"Whoever lays their hand on me is a usurper and a tyrant; I declare them to be my enemy . . . government is slavery. Its laws are cobwebs for the rich and chains of steel for the poor. To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied on, regulated, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, ruled, censored by persons who have neither wisdom nor virtue. It is in every action and transaction to be registered, stamped, taxed, patented, licensed, assessed, measured, reprimanded, corrected, frustrated. Under pretext of the public good it is to be exploited, monopolized, embezzled, robbed, and then, at the least protest or word of complaint, to be fined, harassed, vilified, beaten up, bludgeoned, disarmed, judged, condemned, imprisoned, shot garroted, deported, sold, betrayed, swindled, deceived, outraged dishonoured, that’s government, that’s its justice, that’s its morality!"

— Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1848, Paris)

"If their assaults be verbal, their defense must be likewise verbal; if the sword be drawn against them, they may also take up arms and fight either with tongue or hand, as occasion is: yea, if they be assailed by surprisals, they may also make use both of ambuscades and countermines . . ."

— "Junius Brutus" (Duplessis Mornay), from Vindiciae contra Tyrannos (1579)

"There are two chief motives which induce men to attack tyrannies — hatred and contempt. Hatred of tyrants is inevitable, and contempt is also a frequent cause of their destruction. . . . Even the friends of a tyrant will sometimes attack him out of contempt; for the confidence which he reposes in them breeds contempt . . ."

— Aristotle, from Politics Book V

"NEVER AGAIN!"

— J.D.L. Motto

"When you say, ‘Jump!’, we say, ‘Go fuck yourself.’"

— seen on a button worn by a disgruntled employee

"With self-awareness emerging you can perceive the quality of sensory deadness television induces, the one-dimensionality of its narrowed information field, and arrive at an awareness of boredom. This leads ti channel switching at first and eventually to turning off the set. Any act that breaks immersion in the fantastic world of television is subversive to the medium, because without the immersion and addiction, its power is gone. Brainwashing ceases. As you watch advertising, you become enraged."

— Jerry Mander, from Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (p. 311)

"Why are the people rebellious?—

Because those above them meddle in their lives

That’s why they’re rebellious"

— Lao Tzu, from Tao Te Ching, The Definitive Edition (Star translation), Verse 75

"QUESTION AUTHORITY"

— seen on a bumper sticker

"DIPLOMACY"

"Words are powerful tools for a warrior, for they literally shape our world. We therefore learn how a warrior approaches the correct use of words."

— Theun Mares

"Sometimes being responsible means pissing people off."

— Gen. Colin Powell

"Sit your punk ass down."

— good advice for incorrigible dipshits (often followed with the disparaging phrase, "you ain't shit")

"Why don't you step the fuck over here and say that to my face?"

— overheard prior to numerous punchouts

"I piss on your whole family from a very great height!"

— To feud, or not to feud?

"Fuck you, fuck your mother, and fuck your grandmother."

— overheard in an Irish pub, just prior to a full blown melee

"What is your major malfunction? Didn’t your mommy pay enough attention to you when you were little?"

— the USMC DI from Full Metal Jacket (paraphrased).

"Awwww . . . I’m sorry! Did I hurt your widdle feelings?"

— attributed to a USN Chief Petty Officer

"Boy, I’d just soon kill you as not . . ."

— unknown Alabama State Trooper, with drawn sidearm, addressing a young man who’d just wrecked a stolen car and was contemplating fleeing into a swamp

"The only graceful way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can’t ignore it, top it; if you can’t top it, laugh at it; if you can’t laugh at it, it’s probably deserved."

— Russell Lynes

"When you have nothing to say, say nothing; a weak defense strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a weak reply."

— Charles Caleb Colton

"Never forget the power of silence, the massively disconcerting pause that goes on and on may at last induce an opponent to babble and backtrack nervously."

— Lance Morrow

"You start by saying no to requests. Then if you have to go to yes, OK. But if you start with yes, you can’t go to no."

— Mildred Perlman

"Grasp the possibility that a truly tough and worthy competitor knows not only how to fight but also when to quit."

— Jeffery Z. Rubin

"If people wish for peace, they should cease the pin-pricks that precede cannon-shots."

— Napoleon Bonaparte

"You can avoid a lot of fights by realizing that the other guy isn’t intentionally being an asshole by not seeing things your way. A sizable hunk of the time the guy literally can’t understand what your point is. It’s not that he’s stupid, it’s just that his brain operates along totally different lines."

— Marc "Animal" MacYoung, from Fists, Wits, and a Wicked Right (p. 57)

"Their eyes briefly met, then The Man smiled real fucking cool-like. He knew, and he knew that the boys knew that he knew. Real cool vibrations were in the air."

— Ralph "Sonny" Barger, from Ridin’ High, Livin’ Free (p. 30)

"Matters of great concern should be treated lightly."

— from Hagakure, by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (Wilson translation)

"At times of great trouble or disaster, one word will suffice. At times of happiness, too, one word will be enough. And when meeting or talking with others, one word will do. One should think well and then speak."

— from Hagakure, by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (Wilson translation)

"He who overcomes men understands them."

— Lao Tse, from The Book of Tao, LXVIII (6^th c. B.C.)

"You can’t reason with a drunk. You can lie, bullshit, con, and trick one, but you can’t reason with one."

— Marc MacYoung, from A Professional’s Guide to Ending Violence Quickly (p. 205)

"To subdue an enemy without fighting is the greatest of skills."

— Sun Tzu, from Art of War

"Your greatest weapon is in your enemy’s mind."

— Buddha

"If you want to hurt them . . .

Tell them the truth always

When you meet them

Stare deep into their eyes

Take those who wish to dominate you

Turn the game around and play it on them

Don’t spare them a thing

Make sure you tell them about the blood and the pain

They can day what they want

You will trigger all their responses

It’s all blood and death from here

You won’t be kept waiting long."

— Henry Rollins, from The Portable Henry Rollins (p. 141)

 INCARCERATION

"I hereby sentence you to a term of no fewer than four years, to be served at a Federal pound-you-in-the-ass Prison."

— archetypical judge from a dream sequence near the end of Office Space

"When you take everything away from a human being, including his personal dignity, then he has nothing left to lose. He becomes extremely dangerous."

— Dr. John Salazar

". . . it is well known that there is an extraordinarily high death rate (even suicide rate) among all confined animals. This is especially true of the more intelligent ones, such as dolphins and monkeys. There is an even higher lethargy rate, as a visit to any zoo reveals."

— Jerry Mander, from Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (p. 121)

"Unfortunately, the rulers of any system cannot maintain their power without the constant creation of prohibitions that then give the state the right to imprison — or otherwise intimidate — anyone who violates any of the state’s often new-minted crimes. . . . In the name of correctness, of good health, or even of God — a great harassment of the people-at-large is now going on. Although our state has not the power to intimidate any but small, weak countries, we can certainly throw most Americans in prison for violating the ever-increasing list of prohibitions."

— Gore Vidal, from Dreaming War (p. 175)

"Even if you come in with a real good charge on you, if you don’t have friends Inside, you’ll probably have to fight a couple of times. The charge doesn’t always tell the story, so people test you. You don’t have to win when you fight, but you have to keep fighting until somebody stops it. And if you come in without any friends, everybody watches you. They want to see what kind of a person you are. After they find out, different things happen, depending."

— Andrew Vachss, from The Getaway Man (p. 14)

"Jail is nothing more than a pain in the ass. The threat of being sent to jail is like threatening to send someone to his room. Often it is the cost of doing business. Many prefer staying in jail to facing the complexities of life in the world."

—Marc "Animal" MacYoung

"How would you like to be forced all the days of your life to sit beside a stinking, stupid wino every morning at breakfast? Or for some loud fool in his infinite ignorance to be at any moment able to say (slur), "Gimme a cigarette, man!" And I just look into his sleazy eyes and want to kill his ass there in front of God and everyone."

— Jack Henry Abbott

"Everyone has this badass attitude that made it very uncomfortable. Every single confrontation led to a fight. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide — you had to back up your words with violence."

— "Reymundo Sanchez," from My Bloody Life (p. 271)

"Whilst we have prisons it matters little which of us occupies the cells."

— Bernard Shaw

"The most difficult part of prison to accept is that no-one in the system or out on the streets could care less what is happening to the human beings that are living in these places. No-one cares how you feel, no-one cares about your health or your state of mind."

— Harold S. Long

"One thing about prison labor: there is no shop steward or Labor Department to take a grievance to. If the foreman is pissed off at you and wants to spit at you or slap you or destroy your output, there’s no a lot you can do about it."

— Sara Paretsky, from Hard Time (p. 396)

"When we were in jail, I met a lot of my enemies. And when they didn’t have a gun, boy they were quiet . . . They can’t hide in jail. You can’t run and hide, let me tell you, you can’t. There ain’t no way."

— anonymous, from Wallbangin’ (p. 159)

"Prison is so much more dangerous than the street that inmates must be ready at all times."

— Susan A. Phillips

"I was twenty when I went in, thirty-one when I come out. You don’t count months and years — you don’t do time that way. You gotta forget time; you gotta not give a fuck if you live or die. You gotta get to where nothin’ means nothin’."

— James Caan, in Thief, Screenplay by Michael Mann

"It is unnatural and degrading to cage a man like a beast. It serves no purpose but to strip a man of his dignity, twisting him in an attempt to make him conform to the whims of a sick and blatently corrupt system. No good ever comes of this. Either the inmate assumes the identity of a beaten dog — afraid of his own shadow — or he is forced to protect his dignity with the threat of violence. Either way, the inmate becomes resentful, not respectful, of authority, and loses whatever respect he might’ve had for it as a direct result of his incarceration."

— anonymous (RWT)

"Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things."

— John Lame Deer

"They kept us blindfolded and would not allow us to speak. If we tried to speak they would hit us with the butt of a gun . . . We had our hands tied; escape was virtually impossible because we were so well guarded. We disrobed right down to our skivvies and we were barefoot . . ."

— William Lawrence, USN (POW 1967-1973)

"If punishment has no effect to diminish or prevent crime, then no danger would be incurred to dismiss our jailers and jurors and close our prison doors."

— Clarence S. Darrow

"Through a year or more of sensory and psychological deprivation, prisoners are stripped of their individual identities in order that compliant behavior patterns can be implanted, a process of mortification and depersonalization."

— Report on the U.S. Penitentiary at Marion, John Howard Association Report, October 1987, (p. 1)

(The purpose of a HSU (High Security Unit) style facility is to)". . . reduce prisoners to a state of submission essential for their ideological conversion. That failing, the next objective is to reduce them to a state of psychological incompetence sufficient to neutralize them as efficient, self-directing antagonists. That failing, the only alternative is to destroy them, preferably by making them desperate enough to destroy themselves."

— from the ACLU sponsored report, Effects of Confinement in HSU, by Dr. Richard Korn

"Hitler instituted slave labor, which often was equivalent to execution. Laborers were routinely beaten to death or died of cold, untreated illness, or starvation. The penalty for ‘loafing’ or any refusal of work was hanging."

— Hershman & Lieb, from A Brotherhood of Tyrants (p. 186)

"Anybody out on the yard at night alone was shot. If you ran in the yard, you were shot. If you fought in the yard, both of you were shot, no warning. When shit happened in Folsom, they’d kill you on the spot, then sort things out later."

— Ralph "Sonny" Barger, on Folsom Federal Penitentiary’s questionable policies during the early 70s, from Hell’s Angel (p. 194)

"I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions — poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed — which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished."

— Howard Zinn, from You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (p. 150)

"And remember, if ‘Big Luther' tells you to ‘touch yer toes,’ just say NO . . ."

— Jazzman, just prior to a brother’s sentencing

"The sight of a cage is only frightening to the bird that has once been caught."

— Rachel Field, from All This and Heaven Too

"You have put me in here as a cub, but I will come out roaring like a lion, and I will make all hell howl!"

— Carry Nation (1901)

"Jail and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo — obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other."

— Angela Davis

"The character and mentality of the keepers may be of more importance than the character and mentality of the kept."

— Jessica Mitford, from Kind and Unusual Punishment

"Inmates live in fear. The informal organization of prison is a pecking order, with the stronger and better organized inmates preying on the weaker ones. This preying takes many forms, such as expropriation of food, tobacco, and other personal property. It can also involve sex . . ."

— Jack Luger, from Improvised Weapons in American Prisons (p. 20)

"With the passing of time, the criminal will forget the reason for his crime; it is best to execute him on the spot."

— from Hagakure, by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (Wilson translation)

"You can get raped and killed here. Addicted and imprisoned. Saturated and intimidated. Isolated and condemned. You might not get what you deserve but you’ll get something that hurts."

— Henry Rollins, from The Portable Henry Rollins (p. 205)

"Stay out of jail."

— Alfred Hitchcock (advice to young writers)