Naomi Klein Quotes

The government continues to erode our freedom.

It is no accident that wherever the State ha taken economic decision away from the citizen, it has deprived him of his other liberties as well.

When threatened, the first thing a democracy gives up is democracy.

I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else.

I'm tired of living in a police state.

When a government takes over a people's economic life, it becomes absolute, and when it has become absolute, it destroys the arts, the minds, the liberties and the meaning of the people it governs.

It is fundamental that the great powers of Congress to conduct war and to regulate the Nation's foreign relations are subject to the constitutional requirements of due process. The imperative necessity for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental constitutional guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit governmental action.

There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

We give up our liberties too casually [in emergencies and crises]

Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn’t stand on the doorstep with toothbrush moustache and swastika armband—it creeps up insidiously ... step by step …

History indicates that that at a certain point of economic breakdown people cease being concerned with liberties and are ready to accept regimentation. The danger is obviously greater when two main values so many people have are personal peace and affluence.

The people are frightened. When they are frightened, they are much more willing to give us their liberties. But giving up their liberties won't make them safer, that's the real sad part of it.

Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop.

In every generation, a new threat to freedom arises.

Freedom does not die from frontal attack. It dies because men in power no longer believe in a system based upon liberty.

We can see our liberties vanishing here in the United States... A little bit here and a little piece there... We can see it, we can feel it, and we can hear it.

Let us never allow ourselves to think that poverty is an excuse for an invitation to totalitarianism, and if we should be tempted to think as much, let us remind ourselves that totalitarianism not only extinguishes liberty but institutionalises poverty as well

Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.

Freedom can be destroyed, not just by its retraction, but also by its abuse.

The most persistent threat to freedom, to the rights of Americans, is fear.

Anti-democracy...is a virus that exists, and pro-democracy is the antibody to that virus, and I think we have to become vigilant, and we have to stay on top of the issues of democracy and freedom.

I don't think it's entirely paranoid to suspect that one day, you won't be able to so much as question the primary tenets of anti-racism without going to jail.

I fear for the democratic system. And I fear for our liberties. Only a small group of people fights for our liberties. Once we start on the slippery slope and those people are put in jeopardy, then we're really in trouble.

The most critical threat to our freedom is a failure to appreciate the power of truth.

I don't think we should ever accept the idea that someone can come along and take away our safety and our freedom.