{"id":73,"date":"2006-03-09T16:42:32","date_gmt":"2006-03-09T21:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/09\/a-great-quote-to-ponder\/"},"modified":"2006-03-09T16:42:32","modified_gmt":"2006-03-09T21:42:32","slug":"a-great-quote-to-ponder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/09\/a-great-quote-to-ponder\/","title":{"rendered":"A Great Quote to Ponder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I came across a quote from the great historian <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Raul_Hilberg\">Raul Hilberg<\/a><\/strong> today, illustrating how the Rule of Law can degenerate into tyranny:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As the Nazi regime developed over the years, the whole structure of decision-making was changed. At first there were laws. Then there were decrees implementing laws. Then a law was made saying, &#8220;There shall be no laws.&#8221; Then there were orders and directives that were written down, but still published in ministerial gazettes. Then there was government by announcement; orders appeared in newspapers. Then there were the quiet orders, the orders that were not published, that were within the bureaucracy, that were oral. And finally, there were no orders at all. Everybody knew what he had to do.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">The contempt that so many Americans have shown for U.S. government lawbreaking on wiretapping and torture is\u00a0 a bad omen for the future of American liberty.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Unfortunately, many Americans seem incapable of recognizing the danger of letting politicians make up the rules as they go along.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I came across a quote from the great historian Raul Hilberg today, illustrating how the Rule of Law can degenerate into tyranny: As the Nazi regime developed over the years, the whole structure of decision-making was changed. At first there were laws. Then there were decrees implementing laws. Then a law was made saying, &#8220;There [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[22,659],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-attention-deficit-democracy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Great Quote to Ponder - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/09\/a-great-quote-to-ponder\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Great Quote to Ponder - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I came across a quote from the great historian Raul Hilberg today, illustrating how the Rule of Law can degenerate into tyranny: As the Nazi regime developed over the years, the whole structure of decision-making was changed. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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