I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
Interpretation
A modest uprising can be beneficial and is as essential in politics as storms are in nature.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson suggests that occasional rebellion is an important part of a healthy political system. Just as storms are crucial for cleansing the environment and bringing about change in nature, rebellions can serve to rejuvenate governance and ensure that the power remains with the people, preventing stagnation and oppression in society.
In practice
In a speech advocating for democratic reform.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
You canβt have meaningful political democracy without functioning economic democracy.
The world must be made safe for democracy.
When people don't understand that the government doesn't have their interests in mind, they're more susceptible to go to war.
The government that governs from afar absolutely requires that the truth and the facts reach its knowledge by every possible channel, so that it may weigh and estimate them better, and this need increases when a country like the Philippines is concerned, where the inhabitants speak and complain in a language unknown to the authorities.
Africans require, want, the franchise on the basis of one man one vote. They want political independence.
It is an axiom, enforced by all the experience of the ages, that they who rule industrially will rule politically.
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