It may perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones;

And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.

Laws decide wich forms of oppression are allowed, Lord. And because of that, those laws are servants to those in power, for whom oppression is given as a right over those who have little or no power.

[I]t's a very suggestive signal that the people who know the information best--i.e., the people who wrote it--are expending economic work in preventing it going into the historical record, preventing it getting to the public. Why spend so much work doing that? It's more efficient to just let everyone have it--you don't have to spend time guarding it, but also you are more efficient in terms of your organization because of all the positive unintended consequences of the information going around. So we selectively go after that information, and that information is selectively suppressed inside organizations, and very frequently, if it is a powerful group, as soon as someone tries to publish it, we see attempts at post-publication suppression. (p. 84)

You can certainly suppress an idea but you cannot kill it. All you can do is put it under pressure, which quite naturally increases its potential energy. The very idea of suppressing any form of speech or expression sounds kind and generous and open-minded and supportive of the oppressed. When put into action, however, the unintended consequences become evident.

Although many laws perpetuate advantages gained by antecendent violence and apply unequally to rich and poor, and although most are outwardly prohibitive and therefore negative, they rest on the positive basis of the will of most men to live peacefully together.

You can rigidly enforce only those laws that most people believe to be good laws, that is, laws that proscribe actions that they would avoid even in the absence of laws.

Many regulations primarily protect the past, prop up privilege or prevent sensible economic choices.

History records that those who ruled with an iron hand and implemented oppressive and draconian laws, in the end failed to keep their power. People can endure suppression up to certain limit and a certain period of time; after that they rebel to get rid of callous rulers.

As Leslie Stephen has demonstrated, to suppress one truth is to suppress all truth, for truth is a coherent whole.

All historical evidence seems to be that the party of chaos is suppressed by the party of order.

Laws are to govern all alike — those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.

In any case, legal tools must be created so that all these activities or enterprises that are directed against the national health in a physical or intellectual way may be suppressed. The same is true of the exploitation of the distress of the population through profiteering and usury.

Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions — all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced.