The Betrayal by Technology (1993 film)
Context: In a society such as ours, it is almost impossible for a person to be responsible. A simple example: a dam has been built somewhere, and it bursts. Who is responsible for that? Geologists worked out. They examined the terrain. Engineers drew up the construction plans. Workmen constructed it. And the politicians decided that the dam had to be in that spot. Who is responsible? No one. There is never anyone responsible. Anywhere. In the whole of our technological society the work is so fragmented and broken up into small pieces that no one is responsible. But no one is free either. Everyone has his own, specific task. And that's all he has to do.
Just consider, for example, that atrocious excuse… It was one of the most horrible things I have ever heard. The director of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was asked at the Nuremburg trials, “But didn’t you find it horrible? All those corpses?” He replied, “What could I do? I couldn’t process all those corpses. The capacity of the ovens was too small. It caused me many problems. I had no time to think about these people. I was too busy with the technical problem of my ovens.” That is the classic example of an irresponsible person. He carries out his technical task and isn’t interested in anything else.
Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)
“I think it's almost impossible to impose a free and liberal society from the outside.”
2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011), Q&A
Source: Farnham's Freehold (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 75)
“It's almost as if our society values opinion more than it values knowledge.”
Japan's Nuclear Disaster Explained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBvUtY0PfB8
Youtube
News summaries (7 April 1955).
Speech to Conservative Women's Conference (24 May 1978) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103696.
Leader of the Opposition
Context: All over the country, particularly in our large urban areas, old people do go in fear and trembling as never before during either the lifetime of their parents or grandparents... we have been too ready to listen to those who believe that rising crime is due to things like higher unemployment, poor housing, poor pay. While it has always been part of Conservative policy to raise the standard of living of our people we must recognise that in the 1930's there were far more people out of work, far less prosperity and worse housing—but much less crime than now... Rising crime is not due to “society”—but to the steady undermining of personal responsibility and self-discipline—all things which are taught within the family.
Role of a Woman http://english.bayynat.org.lb/WomenFamily/woman1.htm
Allocution to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951. http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P511029.HTM http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12midwives.htm
Context: Besides, every human being, even the child in the womb, has the right to life directly from God and not from his parents, not from any society or human authority. Therefore, there is no man, no human authority, no science, no "indication" at all—whether it be medical, eugenic, social, economic, or moral—that may offer or give a valid judicial title for a direct deliberate disposal of an innocent human life, that is, a disposal which aims at its destruction, whether as an end in itself or as a means to achieve the end, perhaps in no way at all illicit. Thus, for example, to save the life of the mother is a very noble act; but the direct killing of the child as a means to such an end is illicit. The direct destruction of so-called "useless lives," already born or still in the womb, practiced extensively a few years ago, can in no wise be justified. Therefore, when this practice was initiated, the Church expressly declared that it was against the natural law and the divine positive law, and consequently that it was unlawful to kill, even by order of the public authorities, those who were innocent, even if on account of some physical or mental defect, they were useless to the State and a burden upon it. The life of an innocent person is sacrosanct, and any direct attempt or aggression against it is a violation of one of the fundamental laws without which secure human society is impossible. We have no need to teach you in detail the meaning and the gravity, in your profession, of this fundamental law. But never forget this: there rises above every human law and above every "indication" the faultless law of God.
