What citizens of a free country would listen to any offers of good and skillful administration in return for the abdication of freedom?
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the value of freedom, questioning why anyone would accept competent governance if it requires sacrificing their liberty.
John Stuart Mill's quote highlights a fundamental principle of democracy: the intrinsic value of freedom. It suggests that citizens would likely resist any proposals that involve trading their freedom for efficient administration, as losing freedom undermines the very essence of a free society. Mill advocates for the importance of valuing liberty over the temptation of potentially better governance, implying that a truly free society should always prioritize individual rights and freedoms, even amidst challenges.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of civil liberties during a political rally.
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.
To think that because those who wield power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.
There should be perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand the consequences. It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another, unless their own interest is involved.
Political Economy, in truth, has never pretended to give advice to mankind with no lights but its own; though people who knew nothing but political economy (and therefore knew it ill) have taken upon themselves to advise, and could only do so by such lights as they had.
Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.
Kids can't see us bombing, and then listen to us _x000D_ _x000D_ talking about getting guns out of the schools. _x000D_ _x000D_ How can we tell them to solve problems without violence, _x000D_ _x000D_ if, in fact, we can't show an ability to solve problems _x000D_ _x000D_ without violence?
It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.
I discovered that the study of past philosophers is of little use unless our own reality enters into it. Our reality alone allows the thinker's questions to become comprehensible.
The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation.
Those who make some other person their job... are dangerous.
Without the way, there is no going; without the truth, there is no knowing; without the life, there is no living.
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