“Freedom is a demagogue.”

— Giannina Braschi, book United States of Banana

United States of Banana (2011)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 22, 2020. History

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Giannina Braschi37

Puerto Rican writer 1953

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“For Greek democracy failed, and the reasons for its failure are full of instruction. The great ruling ideas which the Greeks gave to the world, ideas which England later was to absorb and spread over a quarter of the globe, freedom and self-government, social equality and civic patriotism, these were corrupted by demagogues and flatterers of the people. It was so fatally easy to think that freedom meant doing what you like, that one man was not only as good as another but equally able to fill any office whatsoever, that majorities could do no wrong, that you could make Utopian laws for your own country without regard to what other nations or other empires were doing…Freedom of speech was stifled and public men who refused to advocate pleasures for the public multitude were banished. Politicians rivalled one another in bribing the electorate.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

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“Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.”

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“‘The greatest gift of the modern world to man is freedom,’... ‘—freedom to think, freedom to speak, freedom to act.’”

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“The freedom of an individual merges in the freedom of all and serves the freedom of all.”

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“Freedom is not an exchange — it is freedom.”

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“This in short is the case of the progressives who talk about freedom of thought. For them freedom of thought is synonymous to freedom of disowning one's God. This is, however, not freedom of thought but freedom of atheism.”

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“Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party — though they are quite numerous — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Die russische Revolution. Eine kritische Würdigung (1920) p. 109 
This contains probably her most famous statement: Freiheit ist immer Freiheit der Andersdenkenden, translated as "Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters."
Variant: Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
Context: Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party — though they are quite numerous — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters. The essence of political freedom depends not on the fanatics of 'justice', but rather on all the invigorating, beneficial, and detergent effects of dissenters. If 'freedom' becomes 'privilege', the workings of political freedom are broken.

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Walter Reuther (1907–1970) Labor union leader

Address before the Berlin Freedom Rally, West Berlin, Germany, May 1, 1959, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 279
1950s, Address before the Berlin Freedom Rally (1959)

“Freedom is a demagogue.”

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