This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of our study: ordinary people, …

This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of our study: ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. A variety of inhibitions against disobeying authority come into play and successfully keep the person in his place. Dr. Stanley Milgram
Obedience to Authority, 1974 (excerpts from his psychological experiments where human subjects apply lethal electrical shocks to other humans, because ‘they’re only following orders.’ )

Another pervasive — and dangerous — sign of the mushy thinking of our time …

Another pervasive — and dangerous — sign of the mushy thinking of our time are the flagrantly fraudulent phrases that pass muster in the media and in politics. None is more fraudulent than the word ‘asking’ in discussions of public policy issues.Liberals love to say things like, ‘We’re just asking everyone to pay their fair share.’ But government is not about asking. It is about telling. The difference is fundamental. It is the difference between making love and being raped, between working for a living and being a slave.The Internal Revenue service is not asking anybody to do anything. It confiscates your assets and puts you behind bars if you don’t pay. Thomas Sowell
Forbes July 1994,(1930- ) American writer, scholar and economist, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute,Stanford, California

43Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy …

43Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:43-45
(King James Version)King James Version (KJV)Public Domain

Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character …

Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil. It is obvious who profits and who loses by such a precept. It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men’s virtues and from condemning men’s vices. When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you – whom do you betray and whom do you encourage? Ayn Rand
VOS, (1905-1982)

Individual Rights and Today's Issue