Some always allege that excessive freedom ultimately destroys itself; while others fear on the contrary that authority, which by its nature always grows, will finally degenerate into tyranny.

It is a simple truth that the human mind can face better the most oppressive government, the most rigid restrictions, than the awful prospect of a lawless, frontierless world. Freedom is a dangerous intoxicant and very few people can tolerate it in any quantity; it brings out the old raiding, oppressing, murderous instincts; the rage for revenge, for power, the lust for bloodshed. The longing for freedom takes the form of crushing the enemy- there is always the enemy!- into the earth; and where and who is the enemy if there is no visible establishment to attack, to destroy with blood and fire? Remember all that oratory when freedom is threatened again. Freedom, remember, is not the same as liberty.

People don't like seeing being afraid to express an opinion and seeing their neighbors dragged away to prison camps. You'd think that would be obvious enough, wouldn't you? But governments — here, anyway — have always seemed unable grasp it. That's what happens when you can't see further than short-term expediency.

If tyranny is going to come in the United States, it's going to come from people who are so fearful of the liberty of Americans, that they believe that the government should shut down all sorts of freedoms that we hold dear.

First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.

Freedom necessarily means that many things will be done which we do not like.

If you scare people enough, they will demand removal of freedom. This is the path to tyranny.

Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop.

But you know there’s always that nagging set of voices out there worried that someone is doing something bad with that freedom—and of course the problem is, sometimes they’re right.

"First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought."

[Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (00-795), 198 F.3d 1083, affirmed.]

(referring to people in favor of commercializing the Internet)"I suppose their thinking is that since ideas can be dangerous, there should be limits on which ideas are expressed. Which is only the foundation of fascism. Thanks, government!"