Thursday, June 30, 2016

The healthy doctrine of liberty, for which we are supposed to stand, is not really perplexing to the mind, though, like many other good things, it is partly a paradox. The two parts of the doctrine are these: first, that there are some things in which a man ought to be interfered with by force, and some things in which he ought emphatically to be left alone; and second, that the things he is permitted to do must often be worse than the things he is forbidden to do. A lady's sneer in a smoking carriage may be much more offensive than a gentleman's cigar in a non-smoking carriage. But the collective strength of mankind is capable of taking the cigar out of the gentleman's mouth. Whereas nothing short of racks and red-hot pincers and the most fiendish torment could take the sneer out of the mouth of the lady. The things are different in kind; and to remember that is to keep the civilized instinct of liberty. The man's cigar is incendiary; like a firebrand or a blazing bomb. The man's cigar is a kind of physical assault; and suppressing it is only preserving social order. The lady's smile is a department of devil-worship; and respecting it is religious toleration.
-Februay 12, 1910, Daily News

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