#rights

Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost. ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#liberty #patriot #patriotism #rights #unalienable-rights

Rights and duties, sounded more entertaining than duties and rights. ↗

— Toba Beta

#nature #rights-and-duties #nature

The scriptures present a God who delights in genocide, rape, slavery, and the execution of nonconformists, and for millennia those writings were used to rationalize the massacre of infidels, the ownership of women, the beating of children, dominion over animals, and the persecution of heretics and homosexuals. Humanitarian reforms such as the elimination of cruel punishment, the dissemination of empathy-inducing novels, and the abolition of slavery were met with fierce opposition in their time by ecclesiastical authorities and their apologists. The elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to dismiss other people’s interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of compromise. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#god #religion #scripture #violence #women-s-rights

Some folks insist that believing in animal rights is like a religion. But religion asks followers to believe in things nobody can see, while animal rights advocates ask followers to see things nobody can believe. ↗

— Craig Burton

#religion #religion

The language of intrinsic human rights represented a significant advance beyond the previous language of world religions in terms of its universal applicability and its thiswordliness. ↗

— Immanuel Wallerstein

#capitalism #human-rights #religion #universalism #religion

Although other animals may be different from us, this does not make them LESS than us ↗

— Marc Bekoff

#animals #speciesism #suffer #respect

Even if only one person’s respect for animals increases, then writing Talon would have been worthwhile. ↗

— Christopher Gerard

#animal-welfare #animals #animals-stories-heroism #respect

[A] couple I had known - who were old friends - asked me what I was going to work on next. I told them I wanted to write a near future book about AIDS concentration camps. They were vehement in their response: they thought it was a terrible idea. Their words both shocked and saddened me. "Do you really want to write a book about homosexuals?" they asked me. "Won't people who read your work be influenced toward sin?" I notice that I don't hear from them much lately. ↗

— Tracy Hickman

#gay-rights #intolerance #science-fiction #science

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me. ↗

— Martin Niemöller

#compassion #cowardice #diversity #human-rights #diversity

انني احترم حق كل انسان في ان يؤمن بما يعتقد انه الصواب، وانتظر أن أعامل بالمثل. ↗

— Malcolm X

#malcom-x #rights #wisdom #human-rights