Anthony Kennedy - Adam Curtis TV - Jeremy Bentham - P J O’Rourke - Mormon Doctrine & Covenants 134:1 - Wendell Phillips - George Orwell - Omar Sharif - Shahira Abouellail - The Corbett Report - V for Vendetta 2005 - David Icke - Narcos 2015-2017 TV -
Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people ... The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it ... By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each. Anthony Kennedy, Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 558 US 310 2010 obiter
Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government. Jeremy Bentham
Guns are the ultimate bulwark against government misbehaviour. P J O’Rourke
We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for the good and safety of society. Mormon Doctrine & Covenants 134:1
We live under a government of men and morning newspapers. Wendell Phillips
The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below … The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in it at all … It was a place impossible to enter except on official business, and then only by penetrating through a maze of barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons. George Orwell, 1984
The people are awake now ... We need a government which is fair to the people and tries to help the people. Omar Sharif
We need to hold people accountable. We don’t do that in this country. Mubarak was untouchable for a long time. And then people got rid of him, and now the army is untouchable. So there’s always someone. We need to get to a point where nobody is beyond criticism, where nobody is untouchable. Shahira Abouellail
Government … doesn’t have the right at all to initiate violence. The Corbett Report: The Government Illusion, James Corbett online 2013
Government authority does not exist. It is a superstition. ibid.
People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people. V for Vendetta 2005 starring Hugo Weaving & Natalie Portman & John Hurt & Stephen Rea & Stephen Fry & Tim Pigott-Smith & Rupert Graves & Roger Allam & John Standing & Eddie Marsam & Ben Miles et al, director James McTeigue
Governments are not there to serve people, they are there to control people. David Icke, Oxford Union Debating Society, 2008
Sometimes it’s so compromised, so corrupt, you can’t trust it. Narcos s3e9: Todos Los Hombres del Presidente, Netflix 2017