The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Interpretation
Defending human freedom often involves protecting those who may not deserve it, as they are the first targets of oppression.
H. L. Mencken highlights the ironic predicament in the struggle for human freedom: one must frequently defend individuals who are considered morally questionable or scoundrels. This is because oppressive laws often target these individuals initially, and to effectively combat oppression, one must act against its earliest manifestations. The quote underscores the complexities of justice and freedom, suggesting that the fight for liberty is not straightforward and may require defending those whose actions are unjustifiable.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the complexities of justice in political activism.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
He spoke well who said that graves are the footprints of angels.
Between the desire And the spasm, Between the potency And the existence, Between the essence And the descent, Falls the Shadow.
The spread of online information isn't just good for charities. It's also good for donors. You can go to a site like Charity Navigator, which evaluates nonprofits on their financial health as well as the amount of information they share about their work.
How accurately can the law fix the crime? There has to be a mechanism for very fast action. The law is like this: catch them and punish them.
You are the sum total of your dominating or most prominent thoughts.
Irreverence is a most necessary ingredient of religion. Not to speak of its importance in philosophy. Irreverence is the only way left to us for testing our universe.
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