In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt.
Interpretation
In times of weak governance, the government's actions or inactions will frustrate and provoke the public.
This quote reflects the tension between a weak government and a discontented populace. It suggests that when a government is ineffectual, its decisions can anger the people it governs, leading to a cycle of discontent and rebellion. The people's frustrations mount with each misguided action by authority, while a lack of action only breeds further disdain, highlighting the precarious relationship between power and the governed.
In practice
This quote can be used in a political debate to illustrate the consequences of ineffective governance.
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.
One of the surest signs of the estimated changes in the consciousness of the American proletariat is to be found in the character of the demands now being put forward by the leadership.
We Filipinos have to exercise the necessary pressure on Marcos. But it would certainly help our cause if the Americans would stop supporting Mr. Marcos.
Political activism is not failing because people are too busy watching cat videos online, but because of a fundamental collapse of citizen leverage on institutions of power like governments and corporations.
Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.
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.
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