Ari Fleischer Quotes

The end of some of the harshest dictatorships has not necessarily spelled a more free world. The extinction of the thing we despise is not giving rise to the democracy we hoped for.

Revolution means democracy in today's world, not the enslavement of peoples to the corrupt and degrading horrors of totalitarianism

Getting rid of the dictator is only a first step in establishing a free society. The dictatorship must also be disassembled.

The free world should not wait for dictatorial regimes to consent to reform.

Iraq is better without Saddam Hussein than with Saddam Hussein. Without a doubt.

The people will not rest until the Pahlavi rule has been swept away and all traces of tyranny have disappeared. As long as the Shah's satanic power prevails, not a single true representative of the people can possibly be elected.

I call on the Iranian people: it is not too late to replace the corrupt regime and return to your glorious Persian heritage, a heritage of culture and values and not of bombs and missiles... How can a nation allow a regime to instill fear, take away the people's freedom and shock the young generation that seeks its way out of the dictatorial Iran.

The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many.

When the people contend for their liberty, they seldom get anything by their victory but new masters.

Every revolution, bloody or not, has two phases. The first phase is defined by the struggle for freedom, the second by the struggle for power and revenge on the votaries of the ancien regime.

For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein's regime is a better and safer place.

The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.

No one argues that we should have imposed a dictatorship in Afghanistan having liberated the country. Similarly, we weren't about to impose a dictatorship in Iraq having liberated the country.

I fear that, tired of anarchy, you may hope at the end for a return of oppression and that you may welcome the yoke of the first fortunate adventurer who shows up, who, far from consolidating your destiny, will only prolong your servitude

The Chinese people are not a new kind of human nature. Human nature in China is the same as it is elsewhere. When you start in a tyrannical regime to hand out freedom there is no place to draw that line and expect that line to hold. And so it’s only a matter of time before this regime comes down

Protect the people from the oppression of dictatorships.

A free Cuba, working for the well-being of the people, was the aim of many of the men who supported Castro, but when it became evident that one tyranny was being supplanted by another some of them began to feel again the urge for the real freedom they had hoped for and fought for. Whereupon, they deserted.

One must not forget, however, that Russia had to free herself from the most frightful mis-government ever inflicted upon a long-suffering people.

This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom…. When you, the German people, tore down that wall—a wall that divided East and West; freedom and tyranny; fear and hope—walls came tumbling down around the world. From Kiev to Cape Town, prison camps were closed, and the doors of democracy were opened.

The price of toppling Gadhafi will be steep. But Libyans will topple him, and in doing so, they will bring down with him the castles of fear our dictators thought they had fortified.

In a democracy the people choose a leader in whom they trust. Then the chosen leader says, 'Now shut up and obey me.' People and party are then no longer free to interfere in his business.

Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.... An attempt to scrutinize men's thoughts and punish their opinions is of all kinds of despotism the most odious: yet this is peculiarly character of a period of revolution.... There is no period more at war with the existence of liberty.

The Orange Revolution in Ukraine is a good example of how people, who are robbed of their right to vote, can protest and put an end to dictatorship.

The Arab spring reminds me a bit of the decolonisation process where one country gets independence and everybody else wants it. How about us, when do we get it, when do we make our move? And you have a situation where someone has been in power for decades, where the integrity of elections, democracy and security have really not been debated or discussed and most people suspect that elections are rigged and that the democratic rotation that elections are supposed to ensure doesn't really happen. And when this goes on for a while you are sitting on a powder keg.

A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left.