A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.more Sir Alex Fraser Tytler quotes |
When the leader is morally weak and his discipline not strict, when his instructions and guidance are not enlightened, when there are no consistent rules, neighboring rulers will take advantage of this.more Sun Tzu quotes |
Those who excel in war first cultivate their own humanity and justice and maintain their laws and institutions. By these means they make their governments invincible.more Sun Tzu quotes |
|
To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is nonetheless a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation. This is not legislation. It is a decree under legislative forms.more United States Supreme Court quotes |
Because of what appears to be a lawful command on the surface, many Citizens, because of their respect for what appears to be law, are cunningly coerced into waiving their rights due to ignorance.more United States Supreme Court quotes |
The Constitution prohibits any direct tax, unless in proportion to numbers as ascertained by the census..... [and] ... prohibits Congress from laying a direct tax on the revenue from property of the citizen without regard to state lines...more United States Supreme Court quotes |
... [the 16th Amendment] conferred no new power of taxation... [and]... prohibited the ... power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged...more United States Supreme Court quotes |
|
... bank records are not the depositor's private papers and having given the information to the bank, the depositor has no legitimate expectation of continued privacy... Records of an individual's accounts with banks are not the individual's private papers protected against compulsory production by the 4th Amendment, but instead are the business records of the banks.more United States Supreme Court quotes |
|
|
Democracy, n.: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, [chaos].more U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 quotes |
|
|
|
|
We recognize, as appellants urge, the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge, and contrary to the evidence. This is a power that must exist as long as we adhere to the general verdict in criminal cases, for the courts cannot search the minds of the jurors to find the basis upon which they judge. If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused, is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic of passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision.more U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Maryland quotes |
In this country sovereignty resides in the people, and Congress can exercise no power which they have not, by their Constitution, entrusted to it: All else is withheld.more U.S. Supreme Court quotes |
|
The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge...more U.S. vs. Dougherty quotes |
The Second Amendment, like the First Amendment, is ... not mysterious. Nor is it equivocal. Least of all is it opaque. Rather, one may say, today it is simply unwelcome in any community that wants no one (save perhaps the police?) to keep or bear arms at all. But ... it is for them to seek repeal of this amendment (and so the repeal of its guarantee), in order to have their way. Or so the Constitution itself assuredly appears to require, if that is the way things are to be.more William Van Alstyne quotes |
I agree that marijuana laws are overdue for an overhaul. I also favor the medical use of marijuana -- if it's prescribed by a physician. I cannot understand why the federal government should interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, nor why it would ignore the will of a majority of voters who have legally approved such legislation.more Abigail Van Buren quotes |
Using the power of the law to ensure that the law abiding are at the mercy of the lawless is an act of barbarism beyond the realms
of logic. The dreamers and fools who force us to endure the carnage should be on trial along with the criminals they are creating.The world is not
made more civil by forcing the civilized to be the victims of the predators. How dare you, any of you, refuse good law abiding citizens the right
to defend themselves in a country where there were 25,000 murders, 105,000 reported rapes, and 975,000 armed robberies LAST YEAR?more Lon VanOstran quotes |
|
That frequent recurrence to fundamental principles, and a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, industry and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty, and keep government free. The people ought, therefore, to pay particular attention to these points, in the choice of officers and representatives, and have a right to exact a due and constant regard to them, from their legislators and magistrates, in the making and executing such laws as are necessary for the good government of the State.more Vermont Declaration of Rights quotes |
The first duty of government is to protect the citizen from assault. Unless it does this, all the civil rights and civil liberties in the world aren't worth a dime.more Richard A. Viguerie quotes |
|
All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws.more Voltaire quotes |
Let the laws be clear, uniform and precise; to interpret laws is almost always to corrupt them.more Voltaire quotes |
|
We are all full of weakness and errors, let us mutually pardon each other our follies. It is the first law of nature.more Voltaire quotes |
What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that is the first law of nature.more Voltaire quotes |
|
|
|
If a law to donate aid to any farmer or cattleman who has had poor crops or lost his cattle comes
within the meaning of the phrase “to provide for the General Welfare of the United States,” why should not similar gifts be made to grocers,
shopkeepers, miners, and other businessmen who have made losses through financial depression, or to wage earners out of employment? Why is not
their property equally within the purview of the General Welfare?more Charles Warren quotes |
Life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.more Earl Warren quotes |
|
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force, and like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.more George Washington quotes |
|
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.more George Washington quotes |
Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, laws, under no form of government, are better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind.more George Washington quotes |
The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend on God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.more George Washington quotes |
Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.more George Washington quotes |
Impeachment is about whatever the Congress says it is. There is no law that dictates impeachment. What the Constitution says is “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and we define that.more Maxine Waters quotes |
But when no risk is taken there is no freedom. It is thus that, in an industrial society, the plethora of laws made for our personal safety convert the land into a nursery, and policemen hired to protect us become selfserving busybodies.more Alan Watts quotes |
Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind.more Henry Grady Weaver quotes |
We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land -- nor, perhaps, the sun or stars. But there is a chart and a compass for us to study, to consult, and to obey. That chart is the Constitution.more Daniel Webster quotes |
|
