Timeless wisdom from Thomas Paine and Friedrich Nietzsche.....

[marmar]

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
- Thomas Paine

Distrust everyone in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

[Duppers]

1. great quotes

thanks.

[jobycom]

2. Brilliant quotes. nt

[ClintonTyree]

3. Does wanting to punish Bush, Cheny et al.......

for their countless crimes against the world make me a bad person then? :shrug:

[happyslug]

4. What about a Person who advocates a law, but oppose any punishment if it is violated?

The classic case is William Jennings Bryan and the 1924 Tennessee law outlawing the teaching of evolution. Bryan supported the law, but opposed any punishment. The rational for opposing the punishment was the law was dealing with professionals (teachers) and as professionals they will follow the law. Now, The next year when Scopes violated the law, Bryan even offered to pay the fine if Scopes could not (the case was made up and it had been arranged by others to pay the fine before Scopes even agreed to be charged with teaching evolution).

If your memory of the Scopes Monkey Trial is from the Movie or Play "Inherit the Wind", the above does NOT make sense. The reason for that is "Inherit the Wind" deviates from the actual trial in several key areas including adding a protest by the Prosecutor of only fining Scopes. That protest did NOT occur for the crime was ONLY subject to a fine and the fine amount had been agreed on (and others had agreed to pay the fine) before Scopes ever agreed to be charged (A Baltimore Newspaper ended up paying the fine, but more for the Publicity of saying they paid the fine than anything else).

As to Nietzsche's quote was that before or after he went insane? Apparently he had had a marginal hold on sanity all of his life but toward the end he went over the edge. This sounds like him while still sane, but when quoting Nietzsche one must be careful for not only did he go over the edge at the end of his life, his sister took over control of his notes and published his last book. That book, while a continuance of his thinking, also reflected her thinking which was Anti-Semitic which lead it to Hitler eyes and the Nazi adoption of this "Collaboration". Since WWII Nietzsche's followers have played up his sister's role in his last book, so to play down the Nazi's adoption of Nietzsche's philosophy, but a good bit of it is in his earlier works (Through Nietzsche did oppose his sister's anti-Semitic views). Just a comment about the quote and that the quote is re-stated but with no reference as to the time it was made and to whom and why.