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freedom

Wednesday 21st of January 2026

Artificial intelligence Creating counterfeit digital people risks destroying our civilisation. Democracy depends on the informed  (not misinformed) consent of the governed. By allowing the most economically and politically powerful people, corporations, and governments to control our attention, these systems will control us. Counterfeit people, by distracting and confusing us and by exploiting our most irresistible fears and anxieties, will lead us into temptation and, from there, into acquiescing to our own subjugation. Daniel Dennett, The Atlantic, May 16, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Autocrats say War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four © 2023 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say This is the price of freedom. Bill O'Reilly, commenting on the 58 murdered and nearly 500 injured by a gun nut in Las Vegas  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Facts To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then  no one can criticize power because there is no basis on which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. Timothy Synder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Fascism Let me tell you the whole truth: if ever Fascism should come to America, it will come in the name of “freedom.” Thomas Mann © 2022 Kwiple.com
Freedom Across the country, we are seeing sharp new limits on the rights and privileges of Americans. And despite a national mythology that ties the threat of tyranny to the machinations of a distant, central government, the actual threat to American freedom is coming from the states. … The plan … is to shrink and degrade the very notion of national citizenship and to leave us, once again, at the total mercy of the states. It is to place fundamental questions of political freedom and bodily autonomy into the hands of of our local bullies and petty tyrants, whose whims they call “freedom,” whose urge to dominate they call “liberty.” Jamelle Bouie, New York Times, May 2, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Freedom An overdose of freedom is lethal to the state. Anything that is medicine can be poison. It is all about the dosage. Vladislav Surkov, founding father of Putinism, architect of Russia's “sovereign democracy” © 2021 Kwiple.com
Freedom But unlike external freedom, internal freedom cannot be guaranteed. Some people are independent-minded by nature; others are born conformists. All that politics can do is to provide more favourable conditions for those who want to choose their own path in life to do so. David Miller, Political Philisophy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Freedom  For a moment we see ourselves as puppets  indeed [as being manipulated by society]. But then we grasp a decisive difference between the puppet theater and our own drama.  Unlike the puppets, we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first step toward freedom. Peter L. Berger, An Invitation to Sociology © 2021 Kwiple.com
Freedom A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. Adlai Stevenson © 2023 Kwiple.com
Freedom Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows. R. H. Tawney, Equality © 2021 Kwiple.com
Freedom Freedom is about each of us, yet none of us is free without help. Individual rights require common effort. Timothy Snyder, Malady © 2021 Kwiple.com
Freedom Freedom is not about having unshackled hands.  Freedom is about having unshackled minds. Volodymyr Zelensky © 2023 Kwiple.com
Freedom Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. One hasn't got to have an enormous military machine in order to be unfree when it's simpler to be asleep, when it's simpler to be apathetic, when it's simpler, in fact, not to want to be free, to think that something else is more important. James Baldwin, “Notes for a Hypothetical Novel” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Freedom  Freedom isn't America's gift to the world. It is God's gift to mankind. George W. Bush © 2023 Kwiple.com
Freedom I tire of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread. from “Freedom [1]” by Langston Hughes © 2017 Kwiple.com
Freedom In the end, though, freedom depends upon citizens who are able to make a distinction between what is true and what they want to hear. Timothy Snyder, Political Philisophy © 2021 Kwiple.com
Freedom Looks like by now Folks ought to know It's hard to beat Hitler Protecting Jim Crow. Freedom's not just To be won Over There. It means Freedom at home, too — Now — right here! from “How About It, Dixie” by Langston Hughes © 2017 Kwiple.com
Freedom Never have we been so free. Never have we felt so powerless. Zygmunt Bauman © 2020 Kwiple.com
Freedom There are, I think, four freedoms we can glean from the Republican program. There is the freedom to control — to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles. There is the freedom to exploit — to allow the owners of business and capital to weaken labor and take advantage of workers as they see fit. There is the freedom to censor — to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class. There is the freedom to menace — to carry weapons wherever you please, to brandish them in public, to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people. Jamelle Bouie, New York Times, May 19, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Freedom There are two options. The first is Anglo-Saxon. I give you the menu, you can choose what you want. The second option is Russian. There is no choice. The chef chooses for you, because he knows better what you want. I suggest the Russian option. Vladislav Surkov, founding father of Putinism, architect of Russia's “sovereign democracy” © 2021 Kwiple.com
Government The commonly held view that the more governments do, the less freedom people have is … mistaken. Governments do sometimes restrict freedom, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not … But at other times government action can increase freedom by giving people options that they would not have otherwise because of cost. We need to look at particular policies, to see whether in opening options up they are closing down other ones that are more important. David Miller, Political Philisophy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun lobbyists say People need guns to kill things Sometimes, but not often, the things killed are schoolchildren, usually other people's That's a small price to pay for freedom © 2018 Kwiple.com
Healthcare We're not going to make an American do what they don't want to do. You get it [healthcare] if you want it. That's freedom. Paul Ryan, promoting Trumpcare's promise to poor people of their freedom to be uninsured and to die from preventable conditions, and its promise to rich people of their freedom to use tax savings to take yet another vacation © 2017 Kwiple.com
Hunger A hungry man is not a free man. Adlai Stevenson © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ignorance If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was & never will be. Thomas Jefferson  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Libertarians American libertarians should rarely be taken at face value. They generally share two characteristics. The first is that they are rich. It is as rare to find an impoverished libertarian as it is to find a wealthy socialist. The second reason is that their libertarianism rarely stretches beyond their personal freedoms, especially the liberty not to be taxed. Other people's freedom is their own lookout. Edward Luce, Financial Times, May 26, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say The right to bear arms guarantees freedom © 2016 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I no longer believe freedom and democracy are compatible. Peter Thiel © 2020 Kwiple.com
 
Truth  If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom. Rex Tillerson, VMI commencement address, May 16, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com