“I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves …
too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or
the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that
deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!’ They
will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions
and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans
will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism:
‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put
right.’”—Schurz, “The Policy of Imperialism,” Speeches,
Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, vol. 6, pp. 119–
20 (1913).
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the
stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while
the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the
darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
” : Ayn Rand in “The Nature of Government”
“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history,
whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small
elite.” — Thomas Jefferson
There is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a
plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and
gifted with ‘a money touch,’ but with ideals which in their essence
are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers: Theodore Roosevelt