Muse – Today’s Question

“All Tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” – Thomas Jefferson

When you read the above phrase, what runs through your mind in response?

Personally, when I look at this, I see the duality that grips the US at this moment. This is a phrase that can perfectly fit nearly any mold and manner of thinking as the concept of ‘people of good conscience’ and ‘Tyranny’ depend entirely on the mindset of the individual. Right, left or center, all could take this phrase and emblazon it across one of their many issues, such that it appears to support it.

It’s a quote that is a perfect political chameleon, able to be applied at will by anyone and be, by itself, entirely impossible to refute without shifting the core beliefs that are a foundation below it.

To me, that makes this quote utterly worthless. Which is sad as on the whole it is a profound and laudable thought. It’s con is that it’s utterly exploitable, like many quotes are.