Totalitarianism Quotes - Page 3

• The gates of heaven surely are closed to those who decline to oppose totalitarianism with all their might.

  G. Edward Griffin

  Heaven, Might, Decline

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• Comedy is the only weapon I have to battle totalitarianism.

  Margaret Cho

  Battle, Weapons, Comedy

  "Margaret Cho: Laugh Lines". Interview with Katie Halper, www.guernicamag.com. June 15, 2015.

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• It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.

  Noam Chomsky

  Freedom, Power, Government

  Noam Chomsky (2013). “How the World Works”, p.217, Soft Skull Press

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• The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization.

  Julian Assange

  Civilization, Tools, Internet

  "Cypherpunks: Freedom And The Future Of The Internet". Book by Julian Assange, www.theguardian.com. 2012.

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• East Germany was so total in its totalitarianism that everything was banned which wasn't compulsory.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Humorous, East Germany

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.8, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.

  George Orwell

  Perfect, Liberty, Libertarian

  George Orwell (2014). “1984”, p.44, Arcturus Publishing

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• The Left doesn't realize that unless you create a formative culture and a critical consciousness capable of changing the way people think about the common sense assumptions that drive their lives, then you've got an ideological foundation for totalitarianism that not only destroys the capacity to think critically, it destroys the capacity to have convictions at all.

  Henry Giroux

  Thinking, People, Common Sense

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• Hannah Arendt in her study of totalitarianism borrowed from Immanuel Kant the concept of radical evil, of evil that's so evil that in the end it destroys itself, it's so committed to evil and it's so committed to hatred and cruelty that it becomes suicidal. My definition of it is the surplus value that's generated by totalitarianism. It means you do more violence, more cruelty than you absolutely have to to stay in power.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Suicidal, Mean, Evil

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. 'Respect for religion' has become a code phrase meaning 'fear of religion.' Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

  Salman Rushdie

  Religious, Art, Real

  "Salman Rushdie: ‘I Stand With Charlie Hebdo, as We All Must’". blogs.wsj.com. January 07, 2015.

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• To declare the Cold War over, and declare democracy has won out over totalitarianism, is a measure of arrogance and wrong-headedness.

  Alexander Haig

  War, Democracies Have, Arrogance

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• The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Thinking, Liberty, Heritage

  American Communications Ass'n v. Douds (1950)

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• The Iraqi Baath Socialist Party was modelled in large part on admiration for European National Socialist and Fascist movements, hoped to emulate them especially in their nationalism against the West. But mutated by Saddam Hussein it became also one that very, very much admired, and grew a special moustache in admiration of the work of Yosif Vissarionovitch Dzugashvili, the great Georgian known to us historically as Stalin. So you had him in modern Iraq, a regime in our own time, that was openly, directly modelled upon the two most extreme examples of European totalitarianism.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Party, Two, Iraq

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• Isn't our choice really not one of left or right, but of up or down? Down through the welfare state to statism, to more and more government largesse accompanied always by more government authority, less individual liberty, and ultimately, totalitarianism, always advanced as for our own good. The alternative is the dream conceived by our Founding Fathers, up to the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society.

  Ronald Reagan

  Dream, Father, Government

  Ronald Reagan (2004). “Speaking My Mind: Selected Speeches”, p.212, Simon and Schuster

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• The driving force behind today's terrorist threat is Islamist fundamentalism. The struggle we are engaged in is, at root, ideological. During the last century a strain of Islamist thinking has developed which, like other totalitarianisms, such as Nazism and Communism, offers its followers a form of redemption through violence.

  David Cameron

  Struggle, Thinking, Roots

  David Cameron's speech to the Foreign Policy Centre thinktank, www.theguardian.com. August 24, 2005.

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• The real division in the world today is not between socialism and capitalism, it's between freedom and totalitarianism.

  Frank Underhill

  Real, Division, World

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• To be corrupted by totalitarianism, one does not have to live in a totalitarian country.

  George Orwell

  Country, Doe

  George Orwell (1986). “The complete works of George Orwell”

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• I categorically deny that. The American left today as I know it - and believe me, I am very familiar with the American left - is going toward authoritarianism, toward totalitarianism. It's becoming the real right in the United States.

  Murray Bookchin

  Real, Believe, Today

  Source: reason.com

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• [He] seems to want it both ways: the freedom to hold and express beliefs, and immunity from criticism for those beliefs. This is the kind of attitude that leads inexorably to totalitarianism. It is to be decried, particularly in a university environment where the search for truth necessitates that no belief be treated as sacred or above scrutiny.

  Jeffrey Shallit

  Attitude, Criticism, Want

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• Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead toward totalitarianism .

  Ludwig von Mises

  Government, Cogs, Arbitrary

  Ludwig von Mises (2013). “The Theory of Money and Credit”, p.428, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Look, America is no more a democracy than Russia is a Communist state. The governments of the U.S. and Russia are practically the same. There's only a difference of degree. We both have the same basic form of government: economic totalitarianism. In other words, the settlement to all questions, the solutions to all issues are determined not by what will make the people most healthy and happy in their bodies and their minds but by economics. Dollars or rubles.

  Tom Robbins

  Russia, Government, Differences

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Another Roadside Attraction”, p.43, Bantam

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• Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarianism which horrify us follow of necessity

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Mean, Individual, Ends

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• We have seen many instances where the free world didn't seem to understand the nature of evil or the battle against evil in their time. We've watched Nazism and fascism and imperial Japan and communism and totalitarianism, and now it seems to be we're all battling against terrorism.

  Sean Hannity

  Evil, Battle, World

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions - by abandoning every value except the will to power - they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.

  George W. Bush

  Lying, Sacrifice, Presidential

  Address to Joint Session of Congress Following 9/11 Attacks, delivered 20 September 2001

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• I regard Marxism as the most sinister and the most subtle form of totalitarianism.

  Murray Bookchin

  Subtle, Form, Sinister

  Source: reason.com

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• The presumption that the law can tell us what natural institution is supposed to be is a formula for totalitarianism. There's not equality in a family; there never is. And yet for that reason, the family is condemned as patriarchal. The goal of this sort of legislation is about the destruction of the traditional family, not just marriage.

  Francis George

  Law, Goal, Reason

  Source: www.realclearreligion.org

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