Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination; it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent.
Interpretation
Liberty requires a balance of order and restraint, particularly on those who are violent.
This quote emphasizes that true liberty cannot exist in a society without the establishment of order and the necessity of subordination to just laws. It suggests that liberty is not merely the absence of restraint, but rather the presence of a system that imposes necessary limits on those who would disrupt peace and justice. In this view, liberty flourishes when there is a fair and just system that curtails violence while allowing civil order.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of law and order in a democratic society.
A large portion of our citizens, who will not believe, even on the evidence of facts, that any public evils exist, or are impending. They deride the apprehensions of those who foresee, that licentiousness will prove, as it ever has proved, fatal to liberty.
A retaliator behaves like a hawk when he is attacked by a hawk, and like a dove when he meets a dove. When he meets another retaliator he plays like a dove. A retaliator is a conditional strategist. His behaviour depends on the behaviour of his opponent.
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long... Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.
We imagined that the mildness of our government and the wishes of the people were so correspondent that we were not as other nations, requiring brutal force to support the laws.
It is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislator to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish them.
Nobody can be exactly me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.
Go within. Use the inner body as a starting point for going deeper and taking your attention away from where it's usually lodged, in the thinking mind.
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