Natan Sharansky Quotes
Will dissent be permitted? The answer to that question will determine whether the society is a free society or a fear society.
Sharansky, Natan, and Ron Dermer. The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. PublicAffairs, 2004, p. 41.
The House Un-American Activities Committee had been harassing Dr. Edward Condon, the Director of the National Bureau of Standards for advocating scientific working relationships with some Russian scientists.
Her organization does survey research throughout the world. The “freedom” to conduct a survey does not exist in many if not most of the nations around the world. Even a democratic country like India requires government approval to conduct a survey.
In early America and up to WWII, generally it was the conservatives like Fisher who were opposed to a strong military and many wanted no military at all except in times of war. It was President Dwight Eisenhower who turned the right wing of America into a pro military force.
This quotation is a great demonstration of how much wiser and the better politician of all the crowned heads of Europe that Queen Victoria was. There were stirrings of freedom and desire for parliamentary government throughout Europe. Queen Victoria, even though and perhaps because she was a young woman, had a great feel for fairness and reasonableness and had read a great deal of history. There were some radical red socialists calling for complete radical revolution scaring European Royalty profoundly. They reacted very conservatively and with reaction, reverting to more tyrannical practices of the past urged in that path by very conservative, right wing advisors. Victoria also had little respect for some of the monarchs who had little interest in their people and much with their personal power and wealth. In the end, it was England which was the only nation which never had a serious radical socialist / communist threat, and that had much to do with Victoria’s political acumen and wisdom.
The President was reacting to a chain of vents whereby Sony Entertainment produced a satiric movie which offended the leadership of North Korea who condemned, threatened and may have launched a cyberattack on Sony. That company reacted by withdrawing the movie and the President thought that was a mistake despite the fact that there were threats against theaters showing the movie and people attending the showings.
Written when only a teenager.
Natan Sharansky is an Israeli politician, human rights activist, and author who, as a refusenik in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, spent nine years in Soviet prisons. He served as Chair of the Executive of the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018. Natan Sharansky currently serves as the Chairman of the Institute of the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) (www.isgap.org).
