To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Interpretation
Forcing someone to fund ideas they oppose is unjust and oppressive.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the moral and ethical implications of coercing individuals to support ideas or causes that they fundamentally disagree with. It highlights the importance of freedom of thought and the rights of individuals to not be compelled to financially support beliefs or initiatives that conflict with their own values, illustrating the broader principle of personal autonomy and the dangers of tyranny in enforcing conformity of thought.
In practice
During a debate on funding for controversial programs, one could use this quote to argue against coercive funding.
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.
It may be in the cultural particularities of people β in their oddities β that some of the most instructive revelations of what it is to be generically human are to be found.
Germany's path to greater military assertiveness has not been linear, and it never will be. Germans do not believe that talking at roundtables solves every problem, but neither do they think that shooting does.
Heaven doesn't make this life less important; it makes it more important.
We look for the Secret - the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of the Wise, Supreme Enlightenment, 'God' or whatever...and all the time it is carrying us about...It is the human nervous system itself.
There is no emptiness without appearance, and there is no appearance without emptiness. That is what we call the interdependent nature.
The universe began as an enormous breath being held. I am glad that it did... until this great exhalation is finished, my thoughts live on.
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