Quotes & Sayings About Tyrannical Government

We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation. — Osama Bin Laden

In the long run, even a tyrannical government only has the power that the people confer on it and coming to understand history is the beginning of making things right. — Nilantha Ilangamuwa

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. — Thomas Jefferson

The rule of law constitutes a basic protection of individuals against tyrannical government. But in the second half of the twentieth century, law lost its focus as a constraint on government and became instead an instrument for widening the scope of government. — Francis Fukuyama

The founders also knew that every government system risks corruption, and they wanted to make sure Americans would be able to defend themselves should the nation's leaders become tyrannical. To that end, they ratified the Second Amendment, guaranteeing the right of Americans to bear arms. An armed populace is a powerful deterrent to tyrants both domestically and internationally, and we must defend this liberty as part of our common defense. — Ben Carson

The Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, was meant to inhibit only the federal government, not the states. The framers, as The Federalist Papers attest (see No. 28), saw the state militias as forces that might be summoned into action against the federal government itself, if it became tyrannical. — Joseph Sobran

Government is at best a petulant servant and at worst a tyrannical master. — George Washington

The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts. — Baruch Spinoza

The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised. — John C. Calhoun

THE time, it is to be hoped, is gone by when any defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. — John Stuart Mill

Tyranny seldom announces itself ... In fact, a tyranny may exist without an individual tyrant. A whole government, even a democratically elected one, may be tyrannical. — Joseph Sobran

Lack of personal morality plus "politically correct" prohibition against judging others' behavior and naming immorality sets up a social environment receptive and vulnerable to a tyrannical government. A tyrannical government transforms every aspect of the cultural day-to-day lives of everyone under its control across all areas from the educational and penal systems to fine art and entertainment dictates right on down to housing regulations and food availabilities. — Alexandra York

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars: It is better to be here [in Europe] ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. — Ronald Reagan

It is *essential* to such a government, that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic. — James Madison

The object of every free government is the public good, and all lesser interests yield to it. That of every tyrannical government, is the happiness and aggrandizement of one, or a few, and to this the public felicity, and every other interest must submit. — Marcus Junius Brutus The Younger

Very few tyrants argued for the slavery of the masses. Instead, they argued for their right to protect the people from themselves. — A.E. Samaan

As citizens, we knew we had ceded some of our individual rights to society in order to live together as a community. But we did not believe this social contract included support for an immoral system. Since the people invested government with its authority, we understood that we had to obey the law. But when law became suppressive and tyrannical, when human law violated divine principles, we felt it was not only our right, but our duty to disobey. As Henry Thoreau strongly believed, to comply with an unjust system is to accept abuse. It is not the role of the citizen to follow the government down a path that violates his or her own conscience. — John Lewis

A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth; for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason. — Noah Webster

But I would have vengeance to fall on the head, not on the hand; on the tyrannical and oppressive government which designed and directed these premeditated and reiterated insults, not on the tools of office which they employed in the execution of the injuries they designed you. — Walter Scott

Where I stand at is on the Second Amendment where the right to bear arms is not just for hunting and fishing and things like that. But it's the right of the American people to have a means of defense against a tyrannical government. So, sometimes you got to have that back-up plan. — Big Boi

These definitions coincide with the terms which, since Greek antiquity, have been used to define the forms of government as the rule of man over man - of one or the few in monarchy and oligarchy, of the best or the many in aristocracy and democracy, to which today we ought to add the latest and perhaps most formidable form of such dominion, bureaucracy, or the rule by an intricate system of bureaux in which no men, neither one nor the best, neither the few nor the many, can be held responsible, and which could be properly called the rule by Nobody. Indeed, if we identify tyranny as the government that is not held to give account of itself, rule by Nobody is clearly the most tyrannical of all, since there is no one left who could even be asked to answer for what is being done. It is this state of affairs which is among the most potent causes for the current world-wide rebellious unrest. — Hannah Arendt

Government has hardened into a tyrannical monopoly, and the human race in general becomes as absolutely property as beasts in the plow. — John Dickinson

Feudalism, serfdom, slavery, all tyrannical institutions, are merely the most vigorous kind to rule, springing out of, and necessarily to, a bad state of man. The progress from these is the same in all cases - less government. — Herbert Spencer

Seek justice from tyrannical governments not with your hat in your hands but with a rifle in your fist. — Emiliano Zapata

You give bureaucrats power over others, and when the others are poor and helpless, nothing matches government. More than any single exploitive tyrannical force, the possibility of what government can do is absolutely terrifying. — Millicent Fenwick

When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense - to fight the government. — Alexander Hamilton

When the history of the 20th century is finally written, one of its key features will be the wanton slaughter of more than 170 million people, not in war, but by their own government. The governments that led in this slaughter are the former USSR (65 million) and the Peoples Republic of China (35-40 million). The point to remember is that these governments were the idols of America's leftists. Part of the reason for these and other tyrannical successes was because the people were first disarmed. — Walter E. Williams

The system that existed in Germany at that time tragically prevented the people from protecting themselves from tyrannical government. This is a system many people vehemently want to impose in America. — Ron Paul

We believe in honesty, morality, and purity; but when they enact tyrannical laws, forbidding us the free exercise of our religion, we cannot submit. God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven, we will be ranged under the banner of heaven and against the Government ... Polygamy is a divine institution. It has been banded down direct from God. The United States cannot abolish it. No nation on the earth can prevent it, nor all the nations of the earth combined ... I defy the United States; I will obey God. — John Taylor

Singling out political opponents for working against the ruling party is precisely the tactic of every tyrannical government from Red China to Venezuela. The first step in the process is creating unfounded public suspicion of political opponents, followed by arresting and jailing any who continue speaking against the regime. — John Carter

You can see where it's going. The extraordinary political apathy that followed Watergate and Vietnam and the institutionalization of grass-roots rebellion among minorities will only deepen. Politics is about consensus, and the advertising legacy of the sixties is that consensus is repression. Voting'll be unhip: Americans now vote with their wallets. Government's only cultural role will be as the tyrannical parent we both hate and need. Look for us to elect someone who can cast himself as a Rebel, maybe even a cowboy, but who deep down we'll know is a bureaucratic creature who'll operate inside the government mechanism instead of naively bang his head against it the way we've watched poor Jimmy do for four years. — David Foster Wallace

[D]emocracy can itself be as tyrannical as a dictatorship, since it is the extent, not the source, of government power that impinges on freedom.
-William F Buckley — William F. Buckley Jr.

One essential of a free government is that it rest wholly on voluntary support. And one certain proof that a government is not free, is that it coerces more or less persons to support it, against their will. All governments, the worst on earth, and the most tyrannical on earth, are free governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them. And all governments - though the best on earth in other respects - are nevertheless tyrannies to that portion of the people - whether few or many - who are compelled to support them against their will. A government is like a church, or any other institution, in these respects. There is no other criterion whatever, by which to determine whether a government is a free one, or not, than the single one of its depending, or not depending, solely on voluntary support. — Lysander Spooner

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify. — Alexander Hamilton

As a form of government, imperialism does not seek or require the consent of the governed. It is a pure form of tyranny. The American attempt to combine domestic democracy with such tyrannical control over foreigners is hopelessly contradictory and hypocritical. A country can be democratic or it can be imperialistic, but it cannot be both. — Chalmers Johnson

[A] mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands. — James Madison

Should We consent to an order of Cincinnati consisting of all the Officers of the Army & Citizens of Consiquence in the united States; how easy the Transition from a Republican to any other Form of Government, however despotic! & how rediculous to exchange a british Administration, for one that would be equally tyrannical, perhaps much more so? this project may answer the End of Courts that aim at making Us subservient to their political purposes, but can never be consistent with the Dignity or Happiness of the united States. — Elbridge Gerry

I heard the Empire has a tyrannical and repressive government!"
"What form of government is that?" said Ponder Stibbons.
"A tautology," said the Dean, from above. — Terry Pratchett

For a government,' said the god, 'is nothing but a mirror of your minds--tyrannical for tyrants--hypocritical for hypocrites --corrupt for those who are indifferent--extravagant and wasteful for the selfish--strong and honorable only toward honest men. — Talbot Mundy

The philosophy of the Declaration, that government is set up by the people to secure their life, liberty, and happiness, and is to be overthrown when it no longer does that, is often traced to the ideas of John Locke, in his Second Treatise on Government. That was published in England in 1689, when the English were rebelling against tyrannical kings and setting up parliamentary government. The Declaration, like Locke's Second Treatise, talked about government and political rights, but ignored the existing inequalities in property. And how could people truly have equal rights, with stark differences in wealth? — Howard Zinn

It's one thing to maintain that upper-income earners should pay higher tax rates because they are better able to shoulder the burden for essential government services. But it's constitutional blasphemy to claim that the tax code should be used as a weapon against the wealthy and that the state should be the tyrannical arbiter of how income is distributed. — David Limbaugh

No human government has a right to enquire into private opinions, to presume that it knows them, or to act on that presumption. Men are the best judges of the consequences of their own opinions, and how far they are likely to influence their actions; and it is most unnatural and tyrannical to say, "as you think, so must you act. I will collect the evidence of your future conduct from what I know to be your opinions." — Charles James Fox

Just like our forefathers in Boston Harbor, who boarded a British ship to let the king know they would have none of his tyrannical rule, this man boarded the pirate ship called the IRS, and let the repressive government, the unfeeling government that is embodied by the man who inhabits the building over there," Hamilton said, pausing and pointing to the White House, a few blocks away. "This courageous man let that evil government know he would no longer suffer under its indifference. Would no longer tolerate taxation without representation. Would no longer accept the injustice and indignity met out by that government organization."
From TAX BREAK, written in 1991, but sounding like today's politics. — Jay Williams

The purpose of the right to bear arms is twofold; to allow individuals to protect themselves and their families, and to ensure a body of armed citizenry from which a militia could be drawn, whether that militia's role was to protect the nation, or to protect the people from a tyrannical government. — Glenn Reynolds