Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes.
Henry GeorgeRead
The protection of the masses has in all times been the pretense of tyranny - the plea of monarchy, of aristocracy, of special privilege of every kind. The slave owners justified slavery as protecting the slaves.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the justification of oppressive systems under the guise of protecting people.
Henry George highlights the hypocrisy of those in power who claim to protect the masses while actually enslaving or oppressing them. Throughout history, tyrants and privileged classes have used the guise of protection as an excuse for their domination, showing that such claims can often mask true agendas of control and exploitation.
In practice
In a discussion about government overreach, one might quote this to illustrate how power can cloak itself in the language of protection.
Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes.
The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt.
It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.
Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over.
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.
Compare society to a boat. Her progress through the water will not depend upon the exertion of her crew, but upon the exertion devoted to propelling her. This will be lessened by any expenditure of force in fighting among themselves, or in pulling in different directions.
When you hear someone criticize a policy on the other side, that's fine. But when you start hearing motive-mongering and demonization, stand up to it just as you would if it were something that was racist or sexist. If we avoid the demonization, disagreements can be positive.
Vietnam was an exercise in mistaken idealism Iraq in cynical money-making. And there's no optimism or idealism now -- Americans are tired of knowledge. Our leaders, the C-students from Yale, know this. We're proud of being ignorant that leaves virtue at our core. We aren't frazzled by knowledge like foreigners, so we can be trusted.
If you do anything out of the ordinary, you can be sure someone, somewhere, will get upset.
It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending.
God hates violence. He has ordained that all men fairly possess their property, not seize it.
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