The late Antonin Scalia explains that many despotic countries have someone in their laws akin to the American Bill of Rights. Without a method of preventing centralization of power, a bill of rights does not protect us.
We can all write about our political issues, we can all push for particular things we believe in, we can all have particular brands of politics, but I say actually it's all bankrupt," Assange said. "And the reason it's all bankrupt, and all current political theories are bankrupt and particular lines of political thought, is because actually we don't know what the hell is going on. And until we know the basic structures of our institutions — how they operate in practice, these titanic organizations, how they behave inside, not just through stories but through vast amounts of internal documentations — until we know that, how can we possibly make a diagnosis? How can we set the direction to go until we know where we are? We don't even have a map of where we are. So our first task is to build up a sort of intellectual heritage that describes where we are. And once we know where we are, then we have a hope of setting course for a different direction. Until then, I think all political theories — to greater and lesser extents of course — are bankrupt.
Germaine Greer, regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminism movement in the latter half of the 20th century.
As Carl Sagan explains, meaningful conversation involves constant skepticism and testing of viewpoints and claims. Anything else is kayfabe conversation. Any attempts to outlaw or discourage skepticism or testing of any viewpoint or claim is an attempt to dehumanize the other person, to force them to become your puppet = Nietzschean ressentiment.
