#rights

Why should the spread of ideas and people result in reforms that lower violence? There are several pathways. The most obvious is a debunking of ignorance and superstition. A connected and educated populace, at least in aggregate and over the long run, is bound to be disabused of poisonous beliefs, such as that members of other races and ethnicities are innately avaricious or perfidious; that economic and military misfortunes are caused by the treachery of ethnic minorities; that women don't mind to be raped; that children must be beaten to be socialized; that people choose to be homosexual as part of a morally degenerate lifestyle; that animals are incapable of feeling pain. The recent debunking of beliefs that invite or tolerate violence call to mind Voltaire's quip that those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#religion #education

This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America ↗

— Paul Robeson

#america #equal-rights #fighting #injustice #race

I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect. ↗

— Temple Grandin

#animals #humanity #death

But those who are incapable of pitying animals are, as a matter of fact, incapable of pitying men. A physician who would cut a living rabbit in pieces -- laying bare the nerves, denuding them with knives, pulling them out with forceps -- would not hesitate to try experiments with men and women for the gratification of his curiosity. ↗

— Robert Ingersoll

#compassion #vivisection #experience

First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others. ↗

— Michael J. Sandel

#good-life #greater-good #individuals #justice #laws

Men should think twice before making widowhood women's only path to power. ↗

— Gloria Steinem

#feminism #men #murder #widowhood #women

[Martin Luther King] said that little black boys and little black girls would be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers. Then he reminded both those spectators before him and all Americans that this hope of his, this faith, was rooted in the promise of America. ↗

— Keith Ellison

#civil-rights #inspirational #politics #promises #united

Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man? ↗

— Howard Zinn

#equality #faith #government #history #equality

You cannot live a nonviolent life as long as you are consuming violence. Please consider going vegan. ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#abolitionist #ahimsa #animals #education #exploitation

A man is educated and turned out to work. But a woman is educated — and turned out to grass. ↗

— Pearl S. Buck

#education #empowerment #inequality #men #women