"Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are rather forced upon them from without. And even their enactment into law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security. They do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace."
&
"All the political rights and liberties which people enjoy today, they do not owe to the good-will of their governments, but to their own strength.... Great mass movements and whole revolutions have been necessary to wrest these liberties from the ruling classes, who would never have consented to them voluntarily. What is important is not that have government have decided to concede these rights, but why they had to do so."
Brian
On Fri, 18 Apr 2003, Doug Henwood wrote:
> A very pleasant surprise to report: At the Brecht Forum event in NYC
> the other night on civil liberties after 9/11, Ira Glasser, former
> director of the ACLU (and a very fine speaker) and current NYCLU
> director Donna Lieberman both agreed that liberals had too long
> relied on courts to protect freedom of speech and assembly, and not
> enough on popular action.