If we destroy human rights and rule of law in response to terrorism, they have won.
Interpretation
Responding to terrorism by sacrificing human rights leads to the victory of those we oppose.
Joichi Ito emphasizes that sacrificing fundamental human rights and the rule of law in the face of terrorism is a self-defeating action. By compromising these core principles, we allow terrorists to achieve their goal of instilling fear and chaos, ultimately undermining the very values we seek to protect.
In practice
During a public debate on civil liberties after an attack, this quote could highlight the importance of upholding rights.
Consequently, the only thing I learned in school was typing. In the old days, people like me who don't have college degrees had a hard time thriving in society. But today, the ability to learn on your own or from your peers has become really easy. I think this change is leading to a fundamental disruption in education. Independent and lifelong learning are really starting to peak - there is an inflection point coming around how people learn.
Want to increase innovation? Lower the cost of failure.
When we see the world through our thoughts, we stop experiencing life as it really is and others as they really are. When I have a thought about you, that’s something I’ve created. I’ve turned you into an idea. In a certain sense, if I have an idea about you that I believe, I’ve degraded you. I’ve made you into something very small. This is the way of human beings, this is what we do to each other.
It is a curious fact that no man likes to call himself a glutton, and yet each of us has in him a trace of gluttony, potential or actual. I cannot believe that there exists a single coherent human being who will not confess, at least to himself, that once or twice he has stuffed himself to bursting point on anything from quail financiere to flapjacks, for no other reason than the beastlike satisfaction of his belly.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Republic. I like the sound of the word. It means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose. Some words give you a feeling.
You are damned, and we wish to share your damnation.
I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.
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