"The liberty of the individual
is the greatest thing of all,
it is on this and this alone that
the true will of the people can develop."
by:
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen
(1812-1870) Russian writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism"
Source:
From the Other Shore, 1849
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Reader comments about this quote:
We hold this truth to be self evident. If the individual is not free, no multiplying of non-free individuals will make them free. This quote demonstrates that a democracy (rule by the most powerful mob) is antithetical to liberty and freedom.
 -- Mike, Norwalk     
  • 9
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    When I think about how far we have drifted from the respect of each and every individual, the clearer it becomes just exactly how far the importance of life in general has slipped from the minds of even the most common of men today.
     -- Anon     
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    Amen
     -- J Carlton, Calgary     
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    Mike has it all wrong again and as usual. The gentleman did not say "the true will of the PERSON" but "the true will of the PEOPLE" that is pluarl and that is DEMOCRACY or as Mike calls it mob rule. What the quote says is that free individuals can express their views or position and take stands with other free individuals to form a majority or a combined pluarl public will or position. Absolutely five stars but I don't know why any of you guys give it any stars. While I understand you admire the individual part I also understand that you abhor the public will part. You are conflicted you can not admire individual will and abhor the right of individuals to come together, if you deny them that right you are also denyingy them their individual right.
     -- Waffler, Smith     
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    So Waffler, when 51 out of 100 people vote for goodies for themselves and tax the other 49 to get them...this is moral?
     -- J Carlton, Calgary     
  • 9
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    Waffler, you have exposed the shallowness of your own rhetoric yet again or; is it more than that? Being the good socialist lackey that you are, are you trying to go beyond Vladimir Lenin's "A lie told often enough becomes the truth.", straight to Joseph Goebbels' "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it"; why won't you answer the simple question, what / where / why is the lawful nexus that transfers from the individual sovereign, his inalienable rights in favor of and, giving all authority, power, and rights to the more powerful mob? The quote is very plain. It is the individual's liberty that is the basis of a multiple of individuals lawful development. How can each and every individual be free if the mob wants tyranny? You can't speak of 'PEOPLE' in a public setting being free without liberty defining the individual's nobility and absolute sovereignty. Democracy (your 'PEOPLE') is a divisive group manipulator, might making right, having nothing to do with the quote's focus, that being "liberty of the individual is the greatest thing of all"
     -- Mike, Norwalk     
  • 9
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    There is more to liberty than a choice between 2 domineering factions. Liberty is freedom from the rule of someone else. Our elected representatives have no more power that those they represent have. The corruption of the 'law' into a tool for theft is a perversion of its original intent which is to protect the rights of the People. In the American republican governments, confederated as the USA, the law protected property rights, the rights to due process under the law, the rights to life and liberty. Every move towards transforming the US into a populist democracy has resulted in the centralization of power into the hands of fewer and fewer people. The result of this 'voting for money' has been the bankruptcy of the USA, financially and morally. We now merely pay tribute to keep the Ponzi scheme going and leaving the hot potato for our children and grand-children. Unchecked democracy has always been suicide for a free people and the tool of totalitarian control. One day, the American people will wake up to the con, and throw off the yoke of debt hung around their necks from birth. I only hope it is soon...
     -- E Archer, NYC     
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    The 51 only have power in issues of public policy. If polcies are not public the majority has no say no matter how great the majority may be. Again Mike if your liberty of the individual does not allow for him to join with others then how free is your individual really. I say he is not free at all but a prisoner and slave of his liberty, if he cannot join with others. Take the blinders off man!
     -- Waffler, Smith     
  • 2 1
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    Waffler, as to my comments above, only a democracy, by public policy, can prevent individuals from joining with each other. The representative republic protects the right of individuals to join with others. When public policy enters the realm of compelled compliance (not being able to join with others for one example), license, victimless crimes, or larceny with impunity the representative republic no longer exists, only a form despotism like a democracy can exist. Why do you keep promoting the same lie? Free individuals can join with others in any lawful endeavor they so choose. Those of a democracy can only do that which the majority's might says they can do. Free individuals at law, can not compel the compliance of others. How clear does it have to be made to you to stop the idiotic rhetoric. Waffler, AGAIN, my liberty, or that of any individual sovereign freeman, neither allows or disallows anyone else from joining with others (my rights end at your nose).
     -- Mike, Norwalk     
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    Public Policy is exactly the case in point Waffler. Its immoral that 51 can run the lives of 49. Rationalize on behalf of your beloved statist theocracy all you want...it's still immoral and wrong.
     -- J Carlton, Calgary     
  • 5
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    If the 51 does not control the 49 in matters of public policy then it is the 49 that control the 51 and I am sure J you think that is really great. I call that dictatorship.
     -- Waffler, Smith     
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    Waffler, in the representative republic limited by the Constitution, percentages were not even part of the equation. It is law that all administrations are measured to, it doesn't matter what the 51 or the 49 want. No dictatorship, no despotism, no tyranny; just law, justice, and inalienable rights.
     -- Mike, Norwalk     
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    Mike you are full of it. The Constitution provides for Senators and Representatives who can vote in a system that the side of the issue with the largest vote wins. Now what part of percentage don't you understand.
     -- Waffler, Smith     
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    Mike the Constitution provides for the Senate and House to vote. The side having the largest number or percentage of the total wins. Now what exactly don't you understand about this Tonto!
     -- Waffler, Smith     
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    Waffler, I will write this real slow so even you can at least grab a glimpse. As per Article I Section 8 for example; the legislature is very limited on what it can Constitutionally vote on. Beyond that limit, the Declaration of Independence sets the foundational standard of what their limited vote can be focused to (the law of nature or of Nature's God). That means for the Waffler worlders, not one of the 3 branches can make law, vote on things such as health care, or anything else that is not specifically mentioned. Now for the shallow Waffler Worlders: A 51% or 49% (could be 99% to 1%) that can make law, such as is consistent with a democracy, that is despotism, tyranny, contrary to natural law, and a dictatorship. When the vote represents the best way to implement the discovered natural law, that is liberty, lawful, and just. When despots want to stop people from fixing their own homes as they wish, and enforce compelled compliance, license, victimless crimes, and larceny with impunity, that is despotism, tyranny, and a most immoral dictatorship. To choose the law instead of such atrocities is to be free. A democratic process does not necessarily make a democracy or a 51 or 49 percent rule; a democratic process can be applied in a system where law rules (it doesn't matter what the 51 or 49 say, law rules). For the Waffler Worlders that are so shallow that they can't conceive a difference between majority rule and law rule, is why the statist theocracy that now infests this land has become such an heinous form of dictatorship. I might ask you now, what exactly don't you understand about this Tonto!
     -- Mike, Norwalk     
  • 4
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    What it can vote on is decided by the 51 percent, quit changing the subject. Everything you said after your second sentence (I did not read anything after the second sentence) is irrelevant because the issue we are discussing is the 51 percent. Get a grip Mike and get honest about the 51 percent then write something again.
     -- Waffler, Smith     
  • 4
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     -- jim k, Austin      
    Waffler says, "What it can vote on is decided by the 51 percent, quit changing the subject." ;-) Too funny! So 51% of the people can decide what to vote on next? I remember that -- Peppermint Patty would invite herself over for dinner and then take a vote on what Charlie Brown would be serving. What Waffler ignores are the inherent rights of people to say "NO" to the will of the mob. Not everything is up for a vote. Waffler says whatever 51% of the people vote on is the way things are -- for now, until the next vote. Talk about tyranny!
     -- E Archer, NYC     
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    The Experiment of a people Freed set at Liberty, to test the Resolve of elected representatives in protecting the pillars and foundation upon which it is laid.
    "The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, Natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetuated the most Horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of the individual, and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, Turns this Disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public Liberty." With that being said, if this nation were founded as a majority rule, there would be no cry for Individual Liberty. It is not granted the legislative bodies a power to nullify the Freed Individual's sovereignty and Liberty in our Constitutional Republic at Natural law and Order. " Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of ( Threskos) religious obligation deserts the Oaths which are the instruments of investigations in courts of justice ? " The one prevading evil of democracy is tyranny of the majority."
     -- Ronw13, Oregon     
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    Each individual is: “to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them” (Declaration of Independence, 1st paragraph).

    “The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.” (Sir William Blackstone – third most quoted individual in creation of the U.S. Constitution)

    A fundamental legal premise in a “republican form of government” is nemo dat quod non haben = You can’t give what you don’t have. “The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves” (John Locke – the second most quoted individual in creation of the U.S. Constitution).

    Waffler’s shallow references to a democratic society is addressed well by Thomas Sowell: "Mystical references to 'society' and its programs to 'help' may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats."

    A “Republic” has 2 distinct meanings:

    1) “it signifies the state, independently of its form of government” (Bouvier’s Law Dictionary); and,

    2) “A system of government in which each person holds sovereign power and elects representatives who exercise that power. - It contrasts on the one hand with a pure democracy, in which the people or community as an organized whole wield the sovereign power of government, and on the other with the rule of one person (such as a king or dictator) or of an elite group (such as an oligarchy, aristocracy, or junta).” (Black’s Law Dictionary)

    A “Republican Form Of Government” (as guaranteed at Article IV Section 4 U.S.A. Constitution) differs from a general understanding of “Republic” by each person’s sovereign liberty and rights at “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” (Declaration of Independence – a specific focus of natural law) being recognized and held sacrosanct as inalienable / unalienable / inherent. Individual sovereigns personally unite, maintaining discrete separated status to extend personal administration of said law, liberty and rights with / to a limited body politic.

    A “Republican Form Of Government” represents not the corporeal person (as each individual has different needs, talents, abilities, etc.) but rather, inalienable rights which is/are equal for any and all individual(s) before the law.

    A “Democracy”: “That form of government in which the sovereign power is exercised “in a body” (Bouvier’s Law Dictionary) – averse to an individual (mob rule).

    Of course, a most clear illustration being attributed to Benjamin Franklin; “Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for supper. Freedom is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.”

    The ole forest and tree adage works well in defining a democracy; though there are trees voting, only the forest is recognized. Lysander Spooner’s description here applies; “A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.”

    “The general object was to produce a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origins, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.” (Edmund Randolph, {1753-1813} Virginia delegate at the US Constitutional Convention, 1787.

    Simply by trying to redefine democracy does not magically associate individual sovereignty, inalienable rights or liberty to it. A Democracy, as is averse to a representative republic, is the godly master over all corporeal existence and makes its own law.

    A “Democratic Process”: broken down to its simplest understanding is one individual, one vote. The process is useful in Republics, Republican Forms of Government and Democracies. No sovereignty or right is associated.
     -- Mike, Norwalk     
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    Thank you Eric ! ! !


     -- Mike, Norwalk     
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    Well done, Mike! I just formatted your post for readability.  
     -- Editor, Liberty Quotes     
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