To which I would add these words from General Dwight D. Eisehower’s speech to the Texas A&M, 9 November 1950.

But one thing we must fear is decay of our freedoms through our own neglect. A Mussolini, Hitler or Lenin would not tolerate freedom of the ballot, yet half our people do not choose to exercise it . . . . Despotism, whatever its guise, develops when men, losing faith in themselves, surrender bit by bit their own responsibilities to a central authority.

By every flight from our citizenship responsibilities, by that much we endanger the sum of our privileges as citizens. By every act of allegiance to a group whose purpose is its own vicious self-interest and profit, by that much we despoil America of the allegiance which is its life-blood. By every step we take toward making the state the caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the state our master.

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