What does liberty look like?

I am starting to GLARE at mask-wearing people who look at me, if behind their eyes I catch even the slightest consideration of mentioning my whole, unfettered face. The energy I radiate sends them quietly scurrying away.

I have moved past disgust with their failure to understand, resent and resist what is going on. I now sympathize that a system they don’t comprehend targeted their independent thinking and won.

I will work on a mask-specific post, but this set of quotations is the foundation.

– Ted

“Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth
as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government
which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.”
— Thomas Babington Macaulay
(1800-1859) [Lord Macaulay] 1st Baron Macaulay, British historian
Source: “Southey’s Colloquies on Society” par. SC.69
http://libertytree.ca/quotes/Thomas.Babington.Macaulay.Quote.6DED


“Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe,
and forbid men to say or write anything
against this or that opinion,
are often passed to gratify, or rather
to appease the anger of those
who cannot abide independent minds.”
— Baruch Spinoza
(1632-1677) Dutch philosopher of Sephardi Portuguese origin
Source: Theological Political Treatise, 1670
http://libertytree.ca/quotes/Baruch.Spinoza.Quote.30E9



“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that
Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because
society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”
— Justice William J. Brennan
(1906-1997) U. S. Supreme Court Justice
Source: 1989
http://libertytree.ca/quotes/William.Brennan.Quote.31D3

“By a Declaration, Liberty is born.
With Courage she is nourished, and
with unceasing Commitment she is guarded.”
— Eric Schaub
Editor of Liberty Quotes, http://libertytree.ca
Source: The Common Man, 2003
http://libertytree.ca/quotes/Eric.Schaub.Quote.9516


“The Declaration of Independence is the all-time masterpiece of ideological simplification. There in a single sentence of self-evident truth, the founding Fathers put into clear, easily understandable focus, the broad basis of man’s relationship to God, to government, and to his fellow man.”
— Clarence Manion
(1896-1979) American conservative radio talk show host, dean of the Notre Dame Law School
1956
http://libertytree.ca/quotes/Clarence.Manion.Quote.36C6


“My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: Being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so.”
— George Washington
(1732-1799) Founding Father, 1st US President, ‘Father of the Country’
Source: 1795 – letter to Gouverneur Morris, ref: Washington’s Maxims, 54.
http://libertytree.ca/quotes/George.Washington.Quote.958C