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2009 May 22
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"Thus corporations finally claimed the full rights enjoyed by individual citizens while being exempted from many of the responsibilities and liabilities of citizenship. Furthermore, in being guaranteed the same right to free speech as individual citizens, they achieved, in the words of Paul Hawken, 'precisely what the Bill of Rights was intended to prevent: domination of public thought and discourse.' The subsequent claim by corporations that they have the same right as any individual to influence the government in their own interest pits the individual citizen against the vast financial and communications resources of the corporation and mocks the constitutional intent that all citizens have an equal voice in the political debates surrounding important issues." |
"I am certain that nothing has done so much
to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom
as the striving after this mirage of social justice." |
"Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have." |
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2009 May 21
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"Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point,
it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution
is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals --
that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals,
only the conduct of the government --
that it is not a charter _for_ government power,
but a charter of the citizen's protection _against_ the government." |
"The deterioration of every government
begins with the decay of the principles
on which it was founded." |
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." |
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We will not be driven by
fear into an age of unreason if we remember that we are not descended
from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to
associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular." |
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2009 May 20
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"Liberty has never come from the government.
Liberty has always come from the subjects of government.
The history of liberty is the history of resistance.
The history of liberty is a history
of the limitation of governmental power,
not the increase of it."
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"That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression." |
"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution ... or have failed their purpose ... or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty, and in that cause I am doing the very best I can." |
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2009 May 19
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"“Due process,” a standard that arose in our system of law and
stemmed from the desire to provide rational procedure and fair play,
is equally indispensable in every other kind of social or political enterprise." |
"The right to unite freely and to separate freely
is the first and most important of all political rights." |
"Freedom of the press, freedom of association, the inviolability of domicile, and all the rest of the rights of man are respected so long as no one tries to use them against the privileged class. On the day they are launched against the privileged they are overthrown." |
"What is the fairest fruit of the English Tree of Liberty? The security of our rights and of the law, and that no man shall be brought to trial where there is a prejudice against him." |
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2009 May 18
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"The principle of free speech is no new doctrine
born of the Constitution of the United States.
It is a heritage of English-speaking peoples,
which has been won by incalculable sacrifice,
and which they must preserve
so long as they hope to live as free men." |
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