Few governments in the world, for example, praise human rights more ardently than does the government of France, and few have a worse record of supporting tyrants and killers.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
Sometimes good countries are so traumatized by events that they lose their bearings and embrace bad leaders.
I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
Most governments do have inbuilt biases in favour of the rich and powerful, and most do contain plenty of manipulators who love intrigue, who have lost whatever moral compass they may once have had and who protect themselves with steely cynicism.
The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.
People are constantly applying double standards. Take the United States, for example. Washington wants the whole world to admire the country for its democracy. Then the government sends out its army, in the name of this democracy, and leaves behind the kind of chaos we see in Iraq.
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government has grown out of too much government.
France, land of human rights and freedoms, was attacked on its own soil by a totalitarian ideology: Islamic fundamentalism. It is only by refusing to be in denial, by looking the enemy in the eye, that one can avoid conflating issues.
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
All governments, the worst on earth, and the most tyrannical on earth, are free governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them.