“No admission of the party... can make that legal which is in its nature illegal.”
William Henry Ashurst (judge) (1725–1807) English judge
Atherfold v. Beard (1788), 1 T. R. 615.
“Communist parties are both legal and illegal, and the illegal structure governs the legal. But legality is an enormous aid to the illegal conspiracy. It prevents forthright action against the chief criminals; it leads to roundabout persecution; it enables the Communist to deceive simple, generous-hearted, and gullible citizens, and it leads to dubiously legal actions from the government itself. The present half-legal, half-persecuted position of the Party and its members is not justice. It operates to eliminate one evil with another, both evils containing dangers to the Constitutional order.”
Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, “The Truth about Communism” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051180423&view=1up&seq=5 (1948), p. 15-16
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Dorothy Thompson77
American journalist and radio broadcaster 1893–1961Related quotes
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A wonderful quote, if only it were true, despite no shortage image-quote-memes online. note: "Spurious" here: https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/tyranny-defined-which-legal-government-spurious-quotation note: "Not True"
Source: https://www.truthorfiction.com/thomas-jefferson-tyranny-is-defined-as-that-which-is-legal-for-the-government-quote/
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Evo Morales (1959) Bolivian politician
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George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian
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Phillip Abbott Luce (1935–1998)
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Michael Kinsley (1951) American political journalist, commentator television host
As quoted on Crossfire, CNN, Nov. 15, 1990.
David Hockney (1937) British artist
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2000s
Chuck Schumer (1950) U.S. Senator from the State of New York
Speech on immigration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdL2k8jbnAs (24 June 2009), quoted in "Schumer talks tough on immigration reform issue" https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/schumer-talks-tough-on-immigration-reform-issue-1.1868825 by Tom Brune, Newsday.com (18 April 2010)