On the record
Any government which attacks a body organized to promote some set of opinions which may become dangerous to its safety may fairly be presumed to have something to conceal.
Said by
Harold J. Laski
Source
gutenberg.orgHarold J. Laski: “Any government which attacks a body organized to promote some set of opinions which may become dangerous to its safety…”
Editor's note · Context
This quote implies that governments attacking dissenting opinions may have ulterior motives, indicating a lack of transparency.
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More from Harold J. Laski
When attacks on liberty are political or economic, it is their motive rather than their nature that changes.
Each age finds that the incidence of freedom is significant at some special point, and there, once more, the lesson of freedom has to be learned.
The essence of the persecuting position is always that the persecutor has hold of truth and that he would betray its service by allowing it to be questioned.
He is able, accordingly, to indulge in the twofold luxury not only of preserving his own authority, but also of assisting the persons attacked to enter, if they so choose, the way of truth.
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