Quite a common quote thrown around is said to have been made by Thomas Jefferson. I have not been able to track down an actual reference for the statement coming from Jefferson and am prepared to publicly call B.S. on it. As with most things I leave it open to new information. If someone can find where Mr Jefferson wrote or said this I will change the post to reflect it. The quote is :
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
It is a good quote that makes common folk feel nice, but as usual it bothers me when thrown around without solid knowledge of it’s source. What is concrete is that I have found the quote at the earliest known source to me in “Indictment of Socialism Number 3” written by John Basil Barnhill, a British libertarian type, in the year 1914. It is not too bad of a read if you have time and are wide awake enough. Check it out here
I’ve also heard it quoted another way: “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”