#aria

Throughout the history of our civilisation, two traditions, two opposed tendencies, have been in conflict: the Roman tradition and the popular tradition, the imperial tradition and the federalist tradition, the authoritarian tradition and the libertarian tradition. ↗

— Pyotr Kropotkin

#anarchy #libertarian #anarchism

Trade protection accumulates upon a single point the good which it effects, while the evil inflicted is infused throughout the mass. The one strikes the eye at a first glance, while the other becomes perceptible only to close investigation. ↗

— Frédéric Bastiat

#free-trade #libertarian #logical-thinking #economy

Why’s the faerie so obsessed with you anyway? You’re not that cute.” (Arianna to Evie) ↗

— Kiersten White

#obsession

[Librarians] are subversive. You think they're just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them. ↗

— Michael Moore

#librarians #revolution

Flesh eating is unprovoked murder. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#murder

...killing rats wasn’t in my job description. ↗

— Scott Douglas

#library #quiet-please #description

Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programs all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs faked. ↗

— George Orwell

#orwell #russian-revolution #satire #satire

I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator — that's beyond my conceit. I therefore have no choice but to find something suspect even in the humblest believer. Even the most humane and compassionate of the monotheisms and polytheisms are complicit in this quiet and irrational authoritarianism: they proclaim us, in Fulke Greville's unforgettable line, "Created sick — Commanded to be well." And there are totalitarian insinuations to back this up if its appeal should fail. Christians, for example, declare me redeemed by a human sacrifice that occurred thousands of years before I was born. I didn't ask for it, and would willingly have foregone it, but there it is: I'm claimed and saved whether I wish it or not. And if I refuse the unsolicited gift? Well, there are still some vague mutterings about an eternity of torment for my ingratitude. That is somewhat worse than a Big Brother state, because there could be no hope of its eventually passing away. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#authoritarianism #religion #religion

The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny. ↗

— Edward Abbey

#oppression #subversion #totalitarianism #tyranny #wit

Beyond the queues, the vacancy screens listed jobs in a multitude of languages. Invariably, they were low-paid and short-term dead-ends. Nearby, people in headphones sat at a bank of machines: the blind and the illiterate force-fed with ‘opportunities’ by soothing machine voices. On the far wall, in large print, a poster declared: BEGGARS CANNOT BE CHOOSERS. ↗

— Mark Cantrell

#science-fiction #social-justice #totalitarian-system-mechanisms #unemployment #welfare