Mike Heyd

“In the years of the early republic, liberalism had meant government restraint to keep from intruding on a man’s liberty. The Civil War Republicans had expanded that definition to mean a government that protected individuals by defending equality before the law and equal access to resources. Progressive Era reformers expanded that concept yet again, understanding that the federal government must restrain the excesses of big business that were crushing individuals.”
― Heather Cox Richardson, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America

“First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions, that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty