John Mellencamp Quotes

Civil disobedience is not only the natural right of a people, especially when they have no effective voice in their own Government, but that it is also a substitute for violence or armed rebellion.

All governments lie, including our own—under Democrats and Republicans.

Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.

Power corrupts and there is way too much corrupted power. Stand up and monitor the government that is supposed to work for us. That's what the Tea Party represents.

If you can't even manage to to force your own presumably democratic governments to allow you to do good things for yourselves, then you probably deserve to become extinct.

The actions of my government are not bearable. They devastate our natural resources and deprive our people. The politicians speak piously while practicing greed and divisiveness. They care nothing for the nation. I want to do more than withdraw my support. I want to tar and feather them.

I think the American government is now the most corrupt government in the world.

Our war cries opened the deaf ears of the almighty government and its accomplices.

WikiLeaks is exposing our government officials for the frauds that they are. They also show us how governments work together to lie to their citizens when they are waging war.

Let me say this: I'm paranoid of the government. They've lost my trust. They've lied to me so many times that I don't know what to believe from them anymore.

I was a guy who trusted the government. Now, I don't trust a damn thing they do.

People are entitled to believe the government is constantly lying to them, but it isn't.

It's up to us, the people, to break immoral laws, and resist. As soon as the leaders of a country lie to you, they have no authority over you. These maniacs have no authority over us. And they might be able to put our bodies in prison, but they can't put our spirits in prison.

I, for one, will remain constantly vigilant of a government that admits its transgressions of liberty only when they are caught lying.

How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the whole earth, were it not for misgovernment, and a diversion of all his energies from their proper object -- the happiness of man -- to the selfish interest of kings, nobles, and priests.

Secrecy in government, in the public mind, becomes synonymous with deception in government.

The foundation of our movement rests on complete non-violence, whereas violence is the final refuge of the Government. And as no energy can be created without resistance, our nonresistance to Government violence must bring the latter to a standstill.

Why is there so much resistance among people who work in the Government to the seemingly obvious fact that, in our democracy, if the Government lies, it will eventually get caught

… no court was going to penalize a newspaper criminally for showing how the government had lied, particularly when the government’s own papers proved it.

Why do politicians and bureaucrats get salaries and perks from the pockets of the poor and do nothing for them? So I took action against the corrupt and the lazy.

I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.

As long as women consent to be unjustly governed, they will be; but directly women say: "We withhold our consent," we will not be governed any longer as long as government is unjust.

Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it - there is a certain shameful solidarity.

If it's easy for the government to learn about us, it should be easier for us to learn about the government.

The accountability of government has gone to the point where the very use of the law is the instrument of illegality.