Inconvenient Minorities

The relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion.  The law is no protection.  Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.

-- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950), English novelist and journalist, Freedom of the Park, Tribune, 7 December 1945