First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionists.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Martin Niemoller

 

The soft-minded man
always fears change.
He feels security in the status quo,
and he has an almost morbid
fear of the new.

For him, the greatest pain
is the pain of a new idea.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Roper: I’d cut down every law in England before I’d give the Devil benefit of law.
More: Oh, and when the last law was down
And the Devil turned ‘round on you,
Where would you hide, Roper,
The laws all being flat?

This country is planted thick with laws
From coast to coast -
Man’s laws, not God’s -
And if you cut them down
(And you’re just the man to do it),
Do you really think you could
Stand upright in the winds
That would blow then?

Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law
For my own safety’s sake.

Sir Thomas More, A Man for All Seaons, pg 66.

 

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachments by men of zeal, well-meaning, but without understanding.

Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 48 S.Ct. 564, 573, 72 L.Ed. 944
(1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).