Topic: Freedom of Speech and Political Correctness: Quotes About the First Amendment (Read 36 times)

In honor of George Owell’s birthday yesterday, here’s a selection of our favorite quotes about freedom of speech, political correctness, and the First Amendment.

“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
– George Orwell

“Political correctness is tyranny; just tyranny with manners.”
– Charlton Heston

“Why does the left hate free speech? Because they don't know how to talk about the substantive merits when they are challenged. Having submerged themselves in disciplining each other by denouncing any heretics in their midst, they find themselves overwhelmed and outnumbered in America, where there is vibrant debate about all sorts of things they don't know how to begin to talk about. They resort to stomping their feet and shouting ‘shut up’... when they aren't prissily imploring everyone to be ‘civil.’”
– Author Ann Althouse

“Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.”
– Mark Twain

“The right to speak freely does not include the right to be taken seriously.  And it certainly doesn't include the obligation that others must supply you with a platform.”
– Johan Norberg

“Those who call for censorship in the name of the oppressed ought to recognize it is never the oppressed who determine the bounds of censorship.”
– Aryeh Neier

“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.”
– Philip K. Dick

“Political correctness is a sinister device constructed by the left to cause the negative outcomes of left-wing ideology to never be subject to criticism.”
– Peter McLoughlin

“The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.”
– Henry A. Wallace

“I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.”
– P.D. James

“Political correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by the mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
– RJ Wiedemann

“If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.”
– Epictetus

“A joke is either funny or it's not funny. If I hear a funny joke, you know what I do? I laugh, that's what I do. I don't start a focus group to see who got hurt by the joke.”
– Alonzo Bodden

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running around with lit matches.”
– Ray Bradbury

“Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. It is Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. It is an effort that goes back not to the 1960s and the hippies and the peace movement, but back to World War I. If we compare the basic tenets of Political Correctness with classical Marxism the parallels are very obvious.”
– Bill Lind

“To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?”
– Kevin Alfred Strom

“Political tags – such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth – are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
– Robert A. Heinlein

“Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.”
– Maimonides

“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”
– Voltaire

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum...”
– Noam Chomsky

“Debate refines a good idea. That's why we have two major parties in Congress. Somebody says, “I have a great idea for the country.” We say, “Wonderful! Put it on the table. Let's debate.” And we start the debate by questioning the guy who has this great idea. After the third question he says, “I withdraw my great idea. I forgot about those three questions.”
– Jim Rohn

“We (as a society) have to be committed to defending free speech however impolitic, or unpopular, or even wrong because defending that is the only barrier to violence. That's because the only way we can influence one another short of physical violence is thru speech, thru communicating ideas. The moment you say certain ideas can't be communicated you create a circumstance where people have no alternative but to go hands on you.”
– Sam Harris

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