Can I get a conservatives opinion of this Woodrow Wilson quote?

Question

"Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance." -
-- Woodrow Wilson

Answer 1

I think that is a very profound statement.

Now granted everyone has their own opinions about what Wilson meant, so here is mine. This statement is about the people maintaining their freedom (liberty) by maintaining their control over government. As history has always shown, freedom has to be fought for. It is never given. It is earned. Now that last sentence throws a lot of people off, but basically it is implying our freedom to elect our government. It is a reference to something Thomas Jefferson said about revolution in the United States. I believe he said we have a revolution every 4 years implying that we have the ability to change our government and its direction every time we cast ballots in an election. Our "resistance" according to Wilson is our vote in an election.

Answer 2

How about a quote from a famous Republican President:

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919)

It seems that Messers Wilson and Roosevelt had much the same idea. There must be something to it.

Answer 3

Woodrow Wilson, the only president we ever had to hold a phd.

He actually predicted what is happening in the middle east today.

He worked so hard to build an organization like the UN, it killed him.

The UN we have today, I'm sure has him spinning in his grave.

With regard to the quote:
You could easily apply it to our own revolution against high taxes.

Answer 4

The central passage of the Declaration’s opening is the document’s most famous, suggesting the form of government truly fit for a free people: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

“In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man—these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We cannot continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth and their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress.” —Calvin Coolidge

A substantial number of Americans, perhaps a majority, believe that government should dictate where people live, what their housing structures should look like, and how they should be constructed. They believe it is right for government to dictate what curriculum children should study in school. They believe it is right for government to dictate which land should be cultivated, and which land should not be touched by humans. They believe it is right for government to dictate the kind of automobiles that are available for people to purchase. Simply put, a substantial number of Americans believe it is right for government to dictate how people should live. They believe that government should ‘engineer’ society. How different is this modern attitude from the belief system that led Americans into war to defeat the Nazis’ efforts to engineer society. How different is this modern attitude from the belief system that led our founders to declare that the Creator, not government, endowed people with equal rights to ‘...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ How different is this modern attitude from the notion that legitimate government is empowered only by the consent of the governed. Society has been successfully engineered to believe that the goal is no longer freedom, but the control of government, which means the control of society, to fit the agenda of the controlling party. The idea of entering public service as an elected official in order to limit the power of government, and maximize the freedom of individual citizens, is an obsolete concept.

Self-appointed, so-called professionals who represent special interest groups, often funded by government grants, lend their expertise to the hard sell of the philosophy that government enforced fairness makes a better society than does individual freedom... The genius of the American system of government is the idea that government power is limited by the consent of the governed. This consent is conveyed when representatives are empowered at the ballot box to enact rules of behavior. When the rules these representatives adopt do not receive the consent of the people, then the representatives can be sent packing, and new representatives elected. When the rules of behavior are developed, enacted, and enforced by people who are not elected, the people have no way to convey or deny their consent. Government usurps the power from the people and imposes its will—as it wills.

Answer 5

He also said as he lay on his death bed,"Forgive me for I have surely ruined this country" after acknowledging his part in helping to bring about the Great Depression and his part in taking the dollar off of the gold standard thus making the value of the dollar less.......

Answer 6

Our government has never nor will it ever grant us liberty - just those who fight for it, and resist what they know is wrong.

Answer 7

Government is formed, supported, and given its power by the people...so I would have to agree with the quote.

Answer 8

As a conservative, I think that this quote is a little offensive. It basically says that by resisting those that we place in power, we are being more patriotic than if we had participated in the voting process.

Answer 9

the problem is that these are different times. a out of control liberal like Nancy Pelosi in times of pre income tax wouldve been laughed out of office, not the case now.