Oppression

Oppression is "the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner".

Contradictions in Marxist theory

Marxism declared that the "proletariat" is oppressed by the "bourgeoisie" (i.e., ruling class), yet in every country where Socialists-National Socialists-Marxists-Communists have taken power the result has been much worse oppression.

• Attempts to free ordinary people from oppression repeatedly led to what Mikhail Gorbachev frankly called "servility" to new despots. - Thomas Sowell [1]

Quotes

• "Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson

C.S. Lewis wrote:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

See also

• Indoctrination
• Liberal values
• Big Government
• Welfare State
• Nanny State
• Police state