Disrespect for Authority Quotes



In 1856 Senator Charles Sumner, a strong slavery opponent, was writing at his Senate desk and a Southern Congressman, Preston Brooks, sneaked up behind him and beat him senseless with a heavy cane. The beating shocked most of the country and ended much of the comity between pro-slavery and anti-slavery members of Congress. Sumner was in treatment and therapy for 3 years, but returned to the Senate to be one of the radical Republican abolitionists who pressured Lincoln on the emancipation issue and led the vigorous Reconstruction efforts after the war. For the northern newspapers, this became the symbol of Southern lack of civilization and fanaticism which did as much as anything to set the stage for the Civil War. A majority of the House of Representatives voted to expel Brooks, but the necessary two-thirds could not be obtained because Southerners supported Brooks creating even more division between North and South. Brooks was so shunned however that he shortly resigned.


MacArthur had been the Commander of our Military Forces in Korea. He had a huge ego, and he wanted to cross the border and attack China since Chinese Troops were aiding the North Vietnamese. He had previously assured the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President that the Chinese would not send troops into Korea, but he was then wrong. And when they had attacked, they had erased the territorial gains that MacArthur had previously gained. The Joint Chief’s of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State had decided upon a strategy which this time did not follow MacArthur’s strategic advice. The President approved the strategy, but MacArthur spoke and acted contrary. The President met with MacArthur and reiterated the strategy that the President approved. But MacArthur did not follow the orders of the Joint Chiefs. At the time, he and Eisenhower were America’s two most famous military leaders, and of the two MacArthur was senior and thought that he should be President. After he was fired, MacArthur addressed a Joint Session of Congress and gave his "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech which was his first active step towards the Presidency. It was a very sentimental speech with little content and nothing about why he had disobeyed orders. He was totally shocked when it was Eisenhower who was selected to run for President and not him.


Refusing to overturn a lower court's ruling that pornographic magazines were lot legally obscene in the light of the Supreme Court definition depending on community standards.


Trumbo was one of the Liberal victims of McCarthyism, the Red Scare and the Hollywood Blacklist because he refused to testify before the Congressional Committees regarding other people’s political beliefs and affiliations. He has long espoused Liberal causes and was extremely influential writing two Academy Award winning screenplays which were awarded to other screenwriters who were fronting for him as he was Blacklisted as a member of the original “Hollywood 10”. Today, convictions of that type would not stand Constitutional muster, but in those days it did. Trumbo had been a Communist for a while as he explained in {623794}.


Justice Waite asserted that religious claims exempted no one, because constitutional guarantees of religious freedom had to do with beliefs only, and did not protect these actions