The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Interpretation
Defending human freedom often involves protecting those who may not deserve it, as they are the first targets of oppression.
H. L. Mencken highlights the ironic predicament in the struggle for human freedom: one must frequently defend individuals who are considered morally questionable or scoundrels. This is because oppressive laws often target these individuals initially, and to effectively combat oppression, one must act against its earliest manifestations. The quote underscores the complexities of justice and freedom, suggesting that the fight for liberty is not straightforward and may require defending those whose actions are unjustifiable.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the complexities of justice in political activism.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
We're never going to come to a moment where all of us who claim to be feminists can agree about what the first priority of feminism is.
The cat dropped the rat between its two front paws. "There are those," it said with a sigh, in tones as smooth as oiled silk, "who have suggested that the tendency of a cat to play with its prey is a merciful one - after all, it permits the occasional funny little running snack to escape, from time to time. How often does your dinner get to escape?
The greatest human attainment in all the world is for a life to be so surrendered to Him that the name of God Almighty will be glorified through that life.
“Who are you?” One who has waited long for you to speak.
There's a metaphor Vincent Eades likes to use: "If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn't be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn't know that, so it flies.
Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly.
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