scapegoats

A society that has to burn witches to hold itself together is a society that has already failed, and just doesn't know it yet.

Religious extremism is fatal to those who don't conform to its values, or remold or submit themselves to its 'principles'. It craves control and power - and power is the one tool that enables it to wreak its characteristic havoc, destruction and cruelty upon those it chooses to label as scapegoats. Giving in to extremists enables them and empowers them - and worse, it encourages them.

Do you want to know what General Putnam is thinking? It__ this. He__ thinking that he can__ win the war if he doesn__ keep the people on his side. He__ thinking that he can__ keep the people on his side if the troops are running amok among the civilian population__aping the women, stealing cattle, burning houses. He is determined to scare the wits out of the troops to keep them in line. And he__ thinking that it doesn__ matter very much who he executes to do it. So many men have died, so many mothers have wept, so many brothers and sisters have cried. He is thinking that in the long run if he executes somebody, he__l shorten the war and save more lives. It doesn__ matter to him very much who he executes; one man__ agony is like another__, one mother__ tears are no wetter than anybody else__. And that__ why he__ going to have Sam shot.

I have this feeling that immigrants unwittingly help to keep peace between nations by being scapegoats for national ills that would otherwise be blamed on neighbours.

For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.

The best way to avoid becoming a scapegoat is to find one.

No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.

[Pope] Clement waved his hands in irritation as if to dismiss the very idea. "The world is crumbling into ruin. Armies are marching. Men and women are dying everywhere, in huge numbers. Fields are abandoned and towns deserted. The wrath of the Lord is upon us and He may be intending to destroy the whole of creation. People are without leaders and direction. They want to be given a reason for this, so they can be reassured, so they will return to their prayers and their obiediences. All this is going on, and you are concerned about the safety of two Jews?