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2006 July 28
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"Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains." |
"Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals." |
If you have 10,000 regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. |
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2006 July 27
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"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?" |
"The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death,
but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy." |
"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws, but conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." |
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2006 July 26
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"After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." |
"America is at that awkward stage.
It's too late to work within the system,
but too early to shoot the bastards.
On the road to tyranny, we've gone so far
that polite political action is about as
useless as a miniskirt in a convent." |
"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." |
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2006 July 25
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"Nearly every day on the television set
the hero cop breaks into the bad guy’s house
and beats a confession out of him and we cheer on the cop.
Propaganda smears our clear vision.
It causes us to accept the diminishment of our
constitutional protections as something to be lauded --
after all, the cop was protecting us." |
"We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and
in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal
and achieve it merely by law." |
"A patriot must always be ready to defend
his country against his government." |
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2006 July 24
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"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system." |
"Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges."
"(The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.)" |
"A guilty man is punished as an example for the mob;
an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen." |
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