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Tyranny (n): cruel and oppressive government or rule
Before we dive into the tyranny quotes, let us first ask: Is the United States government tyrannical? Not constantly, no. It is awfully good of the police to arrest perpetrators of property crimes, when they are allowed to, and we’d certainly be happy to see the Coast Guard if we just flipped the official Libertas Bella catamaran 12 miles off the coast of Naples Beach.
But the government does check the tyranny boxes when it wants to. Sentencing a mother of four to 12 years in prison for selling $31 of marijuana is arguably very cruel. (Although we do wonder why she didn’t just charge an even thirty. Maybe she offered seed and stem removal for an extra dollar?) Had the CIA carried out its 1962 plan to commit terrorist attacks in order to drum up support for war against Cuba, the alphabet boys would have acted with exceptional cruelty. And giving me a speeding ticket for doing 62 in a 55 is absolute horse****.
You might also argue that any government which reads its citizens’ private correspondences is oppressive. You could say the same about one which roasts children alive, places its own citizens in concentration camps, codifies racism, and spies on Quakers.
In all fairness, perhaps a government can be tyrannical for the right reasons sometimes. We’re sure a lot of the kids in those concentration camps had direct lines to Hirohito himself.
People who feel obligated to defend the largest and most powerful organization on the face of the planet ought to consider that an abusive father can still make his kids macaroni and cheese for dinner after he has spent the past half hour throwing empty liquor bottles at them. But they’re probably more concerned about getting the taste of boot polish out of their mouths.
Best Tyranny Quotes
– Aristotle
– Benjamin Franklin
– Benjamin Franklin
– John Adams
– Samuel Adams
– George Orwell
– Thomas Jefferson
– Thomas Jefferson
– Thomas Jefferson
– Thomas Jefferson
– James Madison
– John Hay
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
– Baron de Montesquieu
– Winston Churchill
– Aesop
– Maximilien Robespierre
– Frederick Douglass
– Albert Camus
– Cicero
– C.S. Lewis
– William Godwin
– Edmund Burke
– Rabindranath Tagore
Poor man, I know he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep”
– William Shakespeare
– Barack Obama
Holy cow! Were those some great tyranny quotes or what? Now, be a good sport and print out this web page to take with you on your upcoming vacation to North Korea. We’re certain the North Koreans will find it fascinating and probably start ordering Milton Friedman T-shirts from us.
