The erosion of a nation's concern for life and for individual rights, has always preceded the intrusion of tyranny.
Interpretation
A society's disregard for individual rights can lead to oppressive government control.
This quote by Gerry Spence suggests that when a nation becomes apathetic towards the value of individual life and rights, it sets the stage for tyranny to take hold. The erosion of empathy and the prioritization of authority over personal freedom can result in the loss of democracy and the rise of oppressive regimes, warning us of the importance of vigilant protection of rights for all individuals.
In practice
In a speech about civil liberties, one might quote Spence to emphasize the necessity of protecting individual rights.
Today the insatiable quest for profit promotes the new slavery. In bewildering ways, the new is more pernicious than the old, for the New American Slave is told he is free, and he clings to that myth as if his life depended upon it, a suspicion that cannot be totally ignored.
The best antidote for crime is justice. The irony we often fail to appreciate is that the more justice people enjoy, the fewer crimes they commit. Crime is the natural offspring of an unjust society.
When any system has for its goal the advancement of the system over the betterment of its individual members, such a system is embedded in slavery.
The true test of liberty is the right to test it, the right to question it, the right to speak to my neighbors, to grab them by the shoulders and look into their eyes and ask, βAre we free?β I have thought that if we are free, the answer cannot hurt us. And if we are not free, must we not hear the answer?
The function of the law is not to provide justice or to preserve freedom. The function of the law is to keep those who hold power, in power.
The ultimate enemy of Democracy is not the drug dealer of the crooked politician or the crazed skinhead. The ultimate enemy is the New King that has become so powerful it can murder its own citizens with impunity.
But who can remember pain, once itβs over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.
You're born in pain and pain is what we're in most of the time. And I think that the bigger the pain, the more gods we need.
There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly.
No matter how hard we try words simply cannot express the horror, the shock, and the revulsion we all feel over what took place in this nation on Tuesday morning. September 11 will go down in our history as a day to remember.
One aspect of modern life which has gone far to stifle men is the rapid growth of tremendous corporations. Enormous spiritual sacrifices are made in the transformation of shopkeepers into employees... The disappearance of free enterprise has led to a submergence of the individual in the impersonal corporation in much the same manner as he has been submerged in the state in other lands.
Sometimes he could almost forget that it was there, the way you forget about the sky or the earth underfoot, but there were other times when it seemed as if there was nothing else in the world.
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