Chesterton & Lewis warn against tyranny


Excerpt:

G. K. Chesterton's helpful assessment of fundamental liberty. By his measure, our liberty is indeed threatened.

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." - Broadcast talk 6-11-35

Jay at STACLU has a great quote on a similar theme:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences." -C.S. Lewis"

Two Christ-professing Englishmen warning us from the early 20th Century, that to give up our freedom "for our own good," is not freedom. It is acquiescing to tyranny with thumb in the mouth, iPod buds in the ear and the tv set on an endless loop of Sex and the City reruns.

More here

Posted by John Ray.