[It is a basic principle of a tyrant] to unarm his people of weapons, money and all means whereby they resist his power.
Interpretation
A tyrant seeks to disarm and disempower their people to maintain control and suppress resistance.
Walter Raleigh's quote highlights the fundamental strategy employed by tyrants: to strip away the capacity for self-defense and economic power from their citizens. By disarming their people and eliminating their means of resistance, tyrants ensure their own dominance and prevent any challenge to their authority. This quote serves as a cautionary reminder of the lengths to which oppressive leaders may go to secure their power, reinforcing the importance of maintaining personal freedoms and societal checks on authority.
In practice
During a speech on the importance of civil liberties, one might quote this to emphasize the need for self-defense against oppressive regimes.
Passions are liken'd best to floods and streams:_x000D_ _x000D_ The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;_x000D_ _x000D_ So, when affection yields discourse, it seems_x000D_ _x000D_ The bottom is but shallow whence they come._x000D_ _x000D_ They that are rich in words, in words discover
Silence in love betrays more woe - Than words though ne'er so witty; A beggar that is dumb, you know, may challenge double pity.
Even such isTime, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
If she undervalues me, _x000D_ _x000D_ What care I how fair she be?
If all the world and love were young,_x000D_ _x000D_ And truth in every shepherd's tongue,_x000D_ _x000D_ These pretty pleasures might me move_x000D_ _x000D_ To live with thee, and be thy love.
It is the nature of men having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean.
To be a member of the Communist Party is to have a taste of the police state. It is a diluted taste but it is bitter and unforgettable.
When counterterrorist policies are used to suppress peaceful protests and legitimate opposition movements, shut down debate, target human rights defenders, or stigmatize minorities, they fail, and we all lose. Indeed, such responses may cause further resentment and instability and contribute to radicalization.
The ultimate test of the value of a political system is whether it helps that society to establish conditions which improve the standard of living for the majority of its people.
I think maybe the people in elected positions are more interested in preserving their jobs than in doing the best job possible.
If the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lamp posts.
In so strong a light, nevertheless, do they appear to the Secretary, that, on their due observance, at the present critical juncture, materially depend, in his judgment, the individual and aggregate prosperity of the citizens of the United States; their relief from the embarrassments they now experience; their character as a people; the cause of good government.
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