But which is the State's essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care.
Benjamin TuckerRead
There is no freedom that I would grant to any man that I would refuse to woman, and there is no freedom that I would refuse to either man or woman except the freedom to invade ... whoever has the ballot has the freedom to invade, and whoever wants the ballot wants the freedom to invade. Give woman equality with man, by all means; but do it by taking power from man, not giving it to woman.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote advocates for equality by emphasizing that true freedom for all must not involve the oppression of others.
Benjamin Tucker's quote highlights the complexities of freedom and equality, arguing that granting rights to one gender should not come at the cost of denying rights to another. It suggests that achieving gender equality requires a re-examination of power dynamics rather than simply bestowing new powers upon women while allowing existing inequalities to persist.
Themes
FreedomEqualityGenderPowerRights
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about women's rights, this quote could illustrate the argument for equality without oppression.
More from Benjamin Tucker
All quotes →The main question ... is not what motive inspired the law, but what it will be possible for men of bad motive to do with the law.
Benjamin TuckerRead
Government is the assumption of authority over a given area and all within it, exercised generally for the double purpose of more complete oppression of its subjects and extension of its boundaries.
Benjamin TuckerRead
Voting is merely a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable... It is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the bully, and the bullet.
Benjamin TuckerRead
To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury.
Benjamin TuckerRead
Anarchism does not repudiate the right of ownership, but it has a conception thereof sufficiently different from [others'] to include the possibility of an end of that social organization which will arise, not out of the ruins of government, but out of the transformation of government into voluntary association for defence.
Benjamin TuckerRead
Similar quotes
A developed country is one that allows all its citizens to enjoy a free and healthy life in a safe environment
Kofi AnnanRead
There's no one thing that is true. They're all true.
Ernest HemingwayRead
Is childhood ever long enough, or a happy time, or even a beautiful summer day? All of these carry the seeds of the same fierce mystery that we call death.
Eugene KennedyRead
Thus the sum of things is ever being reviewed, and mortals dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and like runners pass on the torch of life.
LucretiusRead
The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven.
C. S. LewisRead
Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.
James A. BaldwinRead