Emma Goldman Quote

“The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime.  Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime.  It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.”

~ Emma Goldman

Anarchism

Ratings and Comments


Kimo, US of A

Notice the year....in 1939 .it started

jim k, Austin, Tx

Actually it started around 1860 here in this country.

J Carlton, Calgary

By "Law" the FDA approves food additives and drugs that are harmful to people. The FDA does this because it is almost entirely on the payroll of Big Pharma and works to protect a monopoly. That's just one example of how utterly perverse our "legal" system is...America will need to reinvent herself and return to a system of Justice, which is a VERY different thing than the "law" system we are now plagued by.

Waffler, Smith

Obviously wriiten sometime in the early part of the previous century maybe as much as 100 years ago. Thus she was obviously full of it. Kimo I know not where you got the year 1939 and she did not say that it started she said that its ability to stop crime ended. The worst quote ever posted on these pages. Carlton apparently prays for the days of the snak oil salesman, more phony drugs etc.

Mary - MI
  • Reply
Mary - MI    8/2/11

Everyone - just ignore Waffler - he lives in an alternative reality that does not contain the word "TRUTH" in its vocabulary.

GunnyCee, Durham

A bitter woman who obviously has issues with authority. She was writing during the time of the "robber barons" in the period following the Civil War years when factories used children as laborers. This is when socialism began to raise it's ugly head in earnest. This is the era that spawned Woodrow Wilson and the Leage of Nations nonsense.

J Carlton, Calgary

Gunny...we should ALL have issues with authority when it is not specified in our Constitution.

dick, fort worth

It would help to know something about Emma Goldman. She grew up in the era when poor people in cities worked in sweatshops and in dangerous environments, efforts to make even a barely liveable wage were put down by ruthless police, and people who spoke out about the unbearable conditions were arrested, often beaten, and even deported as she was. The law for those brave and articulate who spoke out in that tlme had reason to feel as she did. While there must be law and authority it is too often used to instigate wars for profit (our own lawmakers have begun what will now be perpetual war) and has never justified capital punishment.

Waffler, Smith

Mary, she said that the state has come to a standstill in coping with crime, the truth is the state is still here, if you actually read facts and truth crime is down etc. So she is full of it.

Mike, Norwalk

'standstill' might not be the most accurate term here but government is definitely the greatest criminal.

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