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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.
H. L. Mencken
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Interpretation

What this quote means

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.

Themes

FreedomOppressionJusticeScoundrelsHuman Rights

In practice

Example use cases

Using this quote in a discussion about the complexities of justice in political activism.

More from H. L. Mencken

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.
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It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
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