Apology…Not

John Stuart Mill on trying to silence your opponent in a debate:
“We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and even if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.”

John Stuart Mill was a Classic Liberal philosopher. The conservatives he was referring to were monachists. The conservatives of today in these United States are the people who still believe in the ideas of men like John Locke and John Stuart Mill. The beliefs of modern liberals are wildly different from the beliefs of classical liberalism.

John Stuart Mill on individualism:
“Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.”

John Stuart Mill on limited government:
“The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.”

John Stuart Mill on liberty:
“That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right…The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

John Stuart Mill on war:
“”War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”