Lee Ryan Quotes

Whenever citizens are seen routinely as enemies of their own government, writers are rountinely seen to be the most dangerous enemies.

In the twentieth century the number of people killed by their own governments under authoritarian regimes is four times the number killed in all this century's wars combined.

Dissidents are not imprisoned as in the domains of the Kremlin, in the old days. They do not have their brains blown out by elite forces armed and trained by the reigning superpower, as happens in Washington's domains - with no particular concern at home - an important fact, one of many that help us learn about ourselves, if we choose.

Despite all the gains for democracy in the world, in many countries anyone who wants to publish truths unwelcome to the government risks suppression and criminal punishment.

The fact that our government is using instruments of government like the IRS to punish its opponents, this is not the kind of thing that is a Democrat or a Republican issue. This is an American issue... A lot of people do not feel free to express themselves.

It is a crime now in my country to talk about the government's crimes.

All collective action, such as declarations, or even petitions, are prohibited in Russia; the Government, by an official fiction is supposed to know all the needs of its subjects

The principal instances of mass violence in the world today are those committed by governments within their own legally recognized borders.

Where the states are dead set on suppressing political opposition, it's very hard to overcome that.

The recently ended twentieth century was characterized by a level of human rights violations unparalleled in all of human history. In his book Death by Government, Rudolph Rummel estimates some 170 million government-caused deaths in the twentieth century. The historical evidence appears to indicate that, rather than protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of their citizens, governments must be considered the greatest threat to human security.

I don't think the government should touch art. Governments are risk averse. They encourage risk-averse personalities to be artists.

First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.

I don't think the Arab Spring had much to do with energy. I think it was just the opposite, in fact. I think the Arab Spring happened because particularly young people knew they were living in a context where they could not realize their full potential, that they are being kept down by their own governments.

Anyone who doesn't think the government killed my father either hasn't given the issue much thought, or is insane.

Knowledge is dangerous, which is why governments often clamp down on people who can think thoughts above a certain caliber.

...any form of government that required the repression, imprisonment, and execution of those who disagreed with it was certainly not a government of the people.

No government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person.

It is always unconscionable for the government to punish people for expressing an idea merely because government officials - or the majority of citizens - decide that those ideas are 'dangerous' or 'wrong.' That is a power nobody ought to possess.

I think [Steve Scalise] is a good man I am not going to vote in that regard because I believe Israel controls the Senate they control the House of Representatives they control the media .

People are afraid to own their own homes. People are afraid their own government will catch them fixing their houses.

It's very hard to stand up to the government which is saying that publication will threaten national security. People don't seem to realize that reporters and editors know something about national security and care deeply about it.

I know. It's shocking to think that the government would try to stick its nose in our ladyparts.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

I must say, with regard to Equatorial Guinea, the Government of Equatorial Guinea, as soon as they had arrested these people, sent a delegation here to say they are going to charge them because they have got sufficient information to say these people were planning to remove the Government of Equatorial Guinea by force.

When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That's dangerous for human development.