How many crimes are permitted simply because their authors could not endure being wrong.
more Albert Camus quotes
The growth of drug-related crime is a far greater evil to society as a whole than drug taking. Even so, because we have been seduced by the idea that governments should legislate for our own good, very few people can see how dangerously absurd the present policy is.
more John Casey quotes
Each peso [or dollar] is a contract between the government and the peso holder. That contract guarantees that each peso -- as a unit of value that the holder has worked hard to get -- will be worth as much tomorrow as today. If the government breaks the contract, it's breaking the law. The only role of government in the economy should be to guarantee the integrity of market transactions.
more Domingo Cavallo quotes
The federal criminal code currently includes more than 3,000 offenses and hardly a congressional session goes by without an attempt to add new sections.
more Stephen Chippendale quotes
When you have no basis for argument, abuse the plaintiff.
more Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes
Les femmes sont tout à fait compétentes pour assurer leur légitime défense, pourvu que la loi ne les transforme pas en criminelles si elles emploient des moyens efficaces à cette fin." "Women are quite able to see to their own defence, as long as the law does not transform them into criminals if they take effective measures to do so.
more Claire Joly, Marie Latourelle, Maryse Martin, and Karen Selick quotes
We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans...
more Bill Clinton quotes
The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people.
more Bill Clinton quotes
When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans ... And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities.
more Bill Clinton quotes
When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly.... [However, now] there's a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it.
more Bill Clinton quotes
The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal.
more Charles Caleb Colton quotes
In all criminal cases whatsoever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts.
more Indiana Constitution quotes
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury... nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any Criminal Case to be a witness against himself, not be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
more Constitution of the United States quotes
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
more U.S. Constitution quotes
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
more Calvin Coolidge quotes
One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
more Richard Cowan quotes
Things in law tend to be black and white. But we all know that some people are a little bit guilty, while other people are guilty as hell.
more Donald R. Cressey quotes
It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become prey to the active. The conditions upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.
more John Philpot Curran quotes
There can be no crime, there can be no misdemeanor without a law written or unwritten, express or implied.
more Benjamin Curtis quotes
My first position is that when Congress speaks of treason, bribery, and other crimes and misdemeanors, it refers to and includes only high criminal offenses against the United States made so by some law of the United States existing when the acts complained of were done. And I say that this is plainly to be inferred from each and every one of the provisions of the constitution on the subject of impeachment.
more Benjamin Curtis quotes
Treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors are high crimes, other high crimes and misdemeanors must be akin to treason and bribery.
more Benjamin Curtis quotes
The big thieves hang the little ones.
more Czech Proverb quotes
The police are not here to create disorder. The police are here to preserve disorder.
more Mayor Richard Daley quotes
There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action.
more Clarence S. Darrow quotes
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
more Clarence S. Darrow quotes
A guilty man is punished as an example for the mob; an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen.
more Jean de la Bruyere quotes
O liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name! [Fr., O liberte! que de crimes on commet dans ton nom!]
more Madame Jeanne Marie Phlipon de La Platiere Roland quotes
We ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character.
more Charles-Louis De Secondat quotes
Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
more Eugene Debs quotes
The function of the prosecutor under the federal Constitution is not to tack as many skins of victims as possible against the wall. His function is to vindicate the rights of the people as expressed in the laws and give those accused of crime a fair trial.
more Justice William O. Douglas quotes
It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches us, that the guilty sometimes go free than the citizens be subject to easy arrest.
more Justice William O. Douglas quotes
The federal government has turned policing into policing for profit.
more Stephen Downing quotes
Gun control has not worked in D.C. The only people who have guns are criminals. We have the strictest gun laws in the nation and one of the highest murder rates. It's quicker to pull your Smith and Wesson than to dial 911 if you're being robbed.
more Lt. Lowell Duckett quotes
Unless a crime is specifically named in the constitution, treason and bribery, impeachments like indictments can only be instituted for crimes committed against the statutory law of the United States.
more Theodore William Dwight quotes
Government is, and always has been, the greatest criminal threat to the peaceful members of society.
more Richard M. Ebeling quotes
The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.
more Albert Einstein quotes
The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.
more Albert Einstein quotes
I say legalize drugs because I want to see less drug abuse, not more. And I say legalize drugs because I want to see the criminals put out of business.
more Edward Ellison quotes
To open his lips is crime in a plain citizen.
more Quintus Ennius quotes
There is no zeal blinder than that which is inspired with a love of justice against offenders.
more Henry Fielding quotes
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
more Geoffrey Fisher quotes
The mission of the Gestapo expanded steadily as, from 1933 onward, “political criminality” was given a much broader definition than ever before and most forms of dissent and criticism were gradually criminalized. The result was that more “laws” or lawlike measures were put on the books than ever.
more Shelia Fitzpatrick quotes
If you ask Americans whether they want an FBI wire tax in their phone bill, they'll say, “No.” If I ask them whether they want a feature on their telephone which allows me to find their child, if they're taken, they'll say, “Yes.” I think it's a question of perception.
more Louis Freeh quotes
Suppose one little old lady in ten carries a gun. Suppose that one in ten of those, if attacked by a mugger, succeeds in killing the mugger instead of being killed by him -- or shooting herself in the foot. On average, the mugger is much more likely to win the encounter than the little old lady. But -- also on average -- every hundred muggings produces one dead mugger. At those odds, mugging is an unprofitable business -- not many little old ladies carry enough money to justify one chance in a hundred of being killed getting it. The number of muggers declines drastically, not because they have all been killed but because they have, rationally, sought safer professions.
more David D. Friedman quotes
It's a moral problem that the government is making into criminals people, who may be doing something you and I don't approve of, but who are doing something that hurts nobody else. Most of the arrests for drugs are for possession by casual users. Now here's somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he's caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That's the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons.
more Milton Friedman quotes
The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good. The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it's in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they'll do you harm, why isn't it all right to say you must not eat too much because you'll do harm? Why isn't it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you're likely to die? Why isn't it all right to say, "Oh, skiing, that's no good, that's a very dangerous sport, you'll hurt yourself"? Where do you draw the line?
more Milton Friedman quotes
Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and also the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order?
more Milton Friedman quotes
The more laws the more offenders.
more Dr. Thomas Fuller quotes
The more laws the more offenders.
more Dr. Thomas Fuller quotes
Murder rates in "gun controlled" areas, such as Mexico and South Africa, are more than twice as high as those in the United States. Conversely, countries such as Switzerland, New Zealand, and Israel, which have household gun ownership rates comparable to those in the United States, have much lower rates of crime and violence.
more Markus T. Funk quotes
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