“The first principle of freedom is the right to go to hell in your own handbasket.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Robert A. Heinlein 557

American science fiction author 1907–1988

James St. James (1966) American writer

Source: Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland

“Everyone wants to know why customer service has gone to hell in a handbasket. I want to know why customer behavior has gone to hell in a handbasket.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Variant: I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

“All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises (1926)

“All right, then, I'll go to hell.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“A poem is free, and it shows its freedom by establishing its own principles.”

Robert Pinsky (1940) American poet, editor, literary critic, academic.

Singing School

“The Second Amendment is about protecting your right to go deer hunting the same way that the First Amendment is about protecting your right to publish poetry.”

James Wesley Rawles (1960) Survivalist-fiction author and blogger

Tools For Survival (2009)

“Freedom means having the right to freely educate your children, and freely means no obligation to send them in a public school, where teachers want to inculcate principles different from the principles that their parents want to inculcate them in a familiar context.”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

On public school, in Adoptions, gay couples and public school in la Repubblica (1 March 2011) http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2011/02/26/news/berlusconi_rafforza-12922793/index.html
2011

“When somebody takes a stand for principles, no matter what side they are on, they have my admiration. And when they take a stand for principles of freedom and refusing o give up your constitutional rights, then I think the guy is kind of a modern American hero.”

Bill Whittle (1959) author, director, screenwriter, editor

"Hot Mic - Jamey Johnson Stands His Ground" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idR9QPbdXJo (26 July 2017)
2010s

“Democracy is not a synonym for justice or for freedom. Democracy is not a sacred right sanctifying mob rule. Democracy is a principle that is subordinate to the inalienable rights of the individual.”

Terry Goodkind (1948) American novelist

Q&A page at the Terry Goodkind Official Site http://www.prophets-inc.com/communicate/q_and_a.html
Context: People use democracy as a free-floating abstraction disconnected from reality. Democracy in and of itself is not necessarily good. Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action.
All men have the right to live their own life. Democracy must be rooted in a rational philosophy that first and foremost recognizes the right of an individual. A few million Imperial Order men screaming for the lives of a much smaller number of people in the New World may win a democratic vote, but it does not give them the right to those lives, or make their calls for such killing right.
Democracy is not a synonym for justice or for freedom. Democracy is not a sacred right sanctifying mob rule. Democracy is a principle that is subordinate to the inalienable rights of the individual.

“The first principle of freedom is the right to go to hell in your own handbasket.”

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Robert A. Heinlein 557

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