The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.
Interpretation
Liberty is safeguarded by a balanced relationship between a strong government and an informed populace.
This quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt emphasizes that genuine liberty can only be preserved through the collaboration of a powerful government that defends the people's interests and a knowledgeable citizenry capable of exercising oversight and maintaining authority over that government. It highlights the dual responsibilities of both the state and its citizens in ensuring freedom and protecting democracy.
In practice
Using this quote in a civic education program to inspire students about their role in democracy.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
The authority of the Supreme Court must not be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.
Freedom of expression - in particular, freedom of the press - guarantees popular participation in the decisions and actions of government, and popular participation is the essence of our democracy.
Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.
I think, at the end of the day, especially for municipal elections, we see relatively low voter turnout. So the goal is to expand who sees themselves reflected in government, who's empowered to take the lead in politics.
Politicians will talk strategy and tactics and policies and programs until they're blue in the face, or you strangle them and they turn blue.
There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism.
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