Due to popular demand, here are some of the quotes we've had as "quote of the month." I've made no effort to organize them. They are in reverse order of their appearance in our contents page, which isn't really all that useful, sorry.
And if you like our quotes, you might like these.
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) It wouldn't shock Gary Stowell either. A former New Jersey police chief and state trooper for 30 years, Stowell, who is also a lawyer, was hired by Edison Township and other cities across the state to investigate cases of police corruption.
Mr. GARY STOWELL: I am a strong advocate that every household in the state of New Jersey should have an alarm system, a Doberman pinscher and a loaded gun. That's how I believe law enforcement has deteriorated in our state.
BRADLEY: An alarm system, a Doberman pinscher and a loaded gun?
Mr. STOWELL: Yes.
BRADLEY: Why?
Mr. STOWELL: What is happening is this system has become so dysfunctional, the system itself has been so corrupted, I know that if one cop lies, 30 will swear to it.
60 Minutes, December 3, 2000
It is not a constitutional violation for a police officer to be a jerk.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, in oral arguments, Atwater v. City of Largo Vista, 99-1408, Monday, December 4, 2000
The origin of poverty is high taxes. In continual fear of tax collectors, [farmers] prefer to abandon their land, so they can avoid their vexations. As King Teodorico said, the only agreeable country is one where no man is afraid of tax collectors.
Pedro Fernandez Navarrete, 1619
Quoted in Alejandro Chafuen, Christians for Freedom 12 (1986)
You have gained a triumph to be preferred to that of the greatest generals. For it is a nobler thing to enlarge the boundaries of human intelligence than those of the Roman Empire.
Julius Caesar, dedication of On Analogy to Cicero
Quoted in Will and Ariel Durant, III The Story of Civilization 162
London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'.
The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement.…
We wouldn't get far in promoting a civilising culture of respect for rights amongst and between citizens if we set about undermining fair trials in the simple pursuit of greater numbers of inevitably less safe convictions. On the contrary, it is obvious that the process of winning convictions ought to be in keeping with a consensual rule of law and not detached from it. Otherwise we sacrifice fundamental values critical to the maintenance of the rule of law - upon which everything else depends.
Sir Ken Macdonald
Director of Public Prosecutions, (UK) Crown Prosecution Service
January 23, 2007
It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.
"Rumsfeld's Rules", Donald Rumsfeld
Being a Demopublican is like being an alcoholic: any thrill it once gave you is long gone, you continue to indulge only to delay the painful consequences, and you can quit any time you want, right after you have one more fling.
YHC (found in a .sig line)
Every society rests on a barbarian base. The people who don't understand civilization, and wouldn't like it if they did. The hitchhikers. The people who create nothing and don't appreciate what others have created for them, and who think civilization is something that just exists and all they need do is enjoy what they can understand of it — luxuries, a high living standard, and easy work for high pay. Responsibilities? Phooey! What do they have a government for?
H. Beam Piper, Space Viking 190-191 (1963)
It's almost funny- only a month ago, we were watching a commercial on some Arabic satellite channel- Arabiya perhaps. They were showing a commercial for Iraqi security forces and giving a list of numbers Iraqis were supposed to dial in the case of a terrorist attack… You call THIS number if you need the police to protect you from burglars or abductors… You call THAT number if you need the National Guard or special forces to protect you from terrorists… But…
Who do you call to protect you from the New Iraq's security forces?
"river", blog entry, February 11, 2006
But a tyrant, the more he is tolerated, the more he becomes intolerable.
Stephen Junius Brutus, Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos (Vindication Against Tyrants), 1579
Let your order be contrary to that of the Gentiles, who hold power over their fellowmen, for such is not my portion, but rather self-appointed tyranny. He, then, who would be great among you, must be the servant of all, and knowing that I am the Lord, he will sing and exalt me throughout all ages.
Bridegroom Matins -
Monday Canon Ode VIII
I frankly don't expect much of the human race, and it has never disappointed me.
Charley Reese
Column, July 15, 2001
Sanity, like government, needs checks and balances; no mortal can be omnipotent and sane.
Will and Ariel Durant, III The Story of Civilization 266
We find that at present the human race is divided politically into one wise man, nine knaves and ninety fools out of every hundred. That is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them and become 'politicians': the wise man stands out because he knows himself to be hopelessly outnumbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics or philosophy: while the ninety fools plod off behind the banners of the nine villains, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice and warfare. It is pleasant to have command, observes Sancho Panza, even over a flock of sheep, and that is why the politicians raise their banners. It is, moreover, the same thing for the sheep whatever the banner. If it is democracy, then the nine knaves will become members of parliament; if fascism, they will become party leaders; if communism, commissars. Nothing will be different except the name. The fools will still be fools, the knaves still leaders, the results still exploitation. As for the wise man, his lot will be much the same under any ideology. Under democracy he will be encouraged to starve to death in a garret, under fascism he will be put in a concentration camp, under communism he will be liquidated. This is an optimistic but on the whole a scientific statement of the habits of Homo impoliticus.
- T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn, 1978
It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition 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.
- John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.)
It is not good to settle into a set of opinions. At first putting forth great effort to be sure that you have grasped the basics, then practicing so that they may come to fruition, is something that will never stop for your whole lifetime.
Do not rely on following the degree of understanding that you have discovered, but simply think: this is not enough.
Hagakure, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, September 10, 1716
You keep talking about teddy bears and saying that they have more safety regulations than guns--but teddy bears are made for babies and guns are made for adults.
Anonyomous child.
Look at the law, and see if it does for one man at the expense of another what it would be a crime for the one to do to the other himself.
Frédéric Bastiat
The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.
H. L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1948), p. 145.
When we talk of civilization, we are too apt to limit the meaning of the word to its mere embellishments, such as arts and sciences; but the true distinction between it and barbarism is, that the one presents a state of society under the protection of just and well-administered law, and the other is left to the chance government of brute force.
The Rev. James White, Eighteen Christian Centuries, 1889
Should a man remain in his country under despotism? Should he do everything in his power to overthrow it, even if the very existence of the state would be put at risk? Should he watch out for the person who does the overthrowing, in case he becomes despot? Should he try to help his country under despotism only by word and seizing opportunities when he can, rather than by war? Is it the mark of a statesman to withdraw and keep his head down under despotism, or rather to run any risk in the cause of freedom? Should he make war on his country and blockade it under despotism? Should he run the same risks as his friends and benefactors, even if they do not seem to him to have made intelligent decisions about the matter? If a man has brought great benefits to his country and has incurred considerable suffering and hostility in so doing, should he then voluntarily agree to risk all for his country, or should he rather be allowed to think of himself and his family first and to give up his opposition to those in power?
Marcus Tullius Cicero, letter, 12 March 49 BC
I've always reckoned a camel is a horse designed by a committee.
Freddie Laker (and others)
One of the greatest calamities of our time is the committed intellectual — the one, that is, who writes marching programs and teaches moralistic lessons to his peers.
Vittorio Messori
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
Smedley Darlington Butler, Major General - United States Marine Corps
There is nothing more diabolical than a bureaucrat with good intentions, like those of the former Italian health minister Umberto Veronesi who worries about my lungs, or of his colleague who worries about my little head when I scooter downtown!
Vittorio Messori
One bleeding heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure - and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizens begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.
Col. Jeff Cooper, Guns & Ammo Magazine - 1975
The administration is always concerned with and committed to finding ways to create a peaceful environment in the Middle East for the difficult issues there to be resolved.
--Ari Fleischer, at an April 1 White House news briefing.
Quoted by James Ridgeway, the Village Voice, Week of April 3 - 9, 2002
I believe a self-righteous liberal Democrat with a cause is more dangerous than a Hell's Angel with an attitude.
Ted Nugent
Trade in drugs may be immoral or irresponsible, but it should no longer be illegal.
Frances Cairncross, The Economist, Survey: Illegal Drugs, July 28, 2001
Power is the horse ridden by evil.
Paul Craig Roberts
In the United States particularly, and in those developing countries that supply it, the attempt to stamp out drugs has had effects more devastating than those of the drugs themselves.
Frances Cairncross, The Economist, Survey: Illegal Drugs, July 28, 2001
I'm kind of simple-minded. I believe in elementary moral truisms — namely, if something is a crime when it's committed against us, it's a crime when we commit it against others. If there is a simpler moral truism than that, I'd like to hear it. I think it makes sense to remind people of it.
Noam Chomsky, Jan. 16, 2002, interview, Salon Magazine
O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to God even as against yourselves or your parents or your kin and whether it be [against] rich or poor: for God can best protect both. Follow not the lusts [of your hearts] lest ye swerve and if ye distort (justice) or decline to do justice verily God is well-acquainted with all that ye do.
Qur'an, 4:135
The truth is as well understood in the United States as anywhere else: the Americans are already able to make their flag respected; in a few years they will make it feared.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1834)
Quoted in Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State 52 (1997)
America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion only of her own. She will recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She knows well that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the color and usurp the standards of freedom.… She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.
John Quincy Adams, 4 July 1821
Quoted in Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State 36 (1997)
(d) the term 'terrorism' means an activity that: (i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and (ii) appears to be intended: (A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.
George Bush, Executive Order on Terrorist Financing, September 24, 2001
"... I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves. Think of it! One kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches when that foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch. And yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side and make the most noise — perhaps even a single daring man with a big voice and a determined front will do it — and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and witch-hunting will come to a sudden end.
"Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race — the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions."
I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think they were.
"Still, it is true, lamb," said Satan. "Look at you in war — what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!"
"In war? How?"
"There has never been a just one, never an honorable one — on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful — as usual — will shout for the war. The pulpit will — warily and cautiously — object — at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers — as earlier — but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation — pulpit and all — will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 1916.
Can it be that America is nostalgic for the times it was getting daily deliveries of zinc coffins from Vietnam? This time it will be even worse.
Andrei Logunov, chairman of Moscow Afghan Veterans Assn.
It is a miracle that so little damage was done in the World Trade Center bombing. There is no reason to disbelieve that if there is a next time, the mind of that terrorist will succeed in taking the twin towers down completely.
Jude Wanniski, January 13, 1998
At the heart of the debate on drugs lies a moral question: what duty does the state have to protect individual citizens from harming themselves? The Economist has always taken a libertarian approach. It stands with John Stuart Mill, whose famous essay "On Liberty" argued that:
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."
This survey broadly endorses that view.
Frances Cairncross, The Economist, Survey: Illegal Drugs, July 28, 2001
Office of the Attorney General
Washington, D.C. 20530
May 17, 2001
Mr. James Jay Baker
Executive Director
National Rifle Association
Institute for Legislative Action
11250 Waples Mill Road
Fairfax, VA 22030
Dear Mr. Baker,
Thank you for your letter of April 10, 2001 regarding my views on the Second Amendment. While I cannot comment on any pending litigation, let me state unequivocally my view that the text and the original intent of the Second Amendment clearly protect the right of individuals to keep and bear firearms.
While some have argued that the Second Amendment guarantees only a "collective" right of the States to maintain militias, I believe the Amendment's plain meaning and original intent prove otherwise. Like the First and Fourth Amendments, the Second Amendment protects the rights of "the people," which the Supreme Court has noted is a term of art that should be interpreted throughout the Bill of Rights. United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 265 (1990) (plurality opinion). Just as the First and Fourth Amendment secure individual rights of speech and security respectively, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. This view of the text comports with the all but unanimous understanding of the Founding Fathers. See, e.g., Federalist No. 46 (Madison); Federalist No. 29 (Hamilton); see also, Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia Constitution, 1764 ("No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."; George Mason at Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention 1788 ("I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people ... To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.").
This is not a novel position. In early decisions, the United States Supreme Court routinely indicated that the right protected by the Second Amendment applied to individuals. See, e.g., logan v. United States, 144 U.S. 263, 276 (1892); Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535, 538 (1893); Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 281-82 (1897); Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581, 597 (1900). Justice Story embraced the same view in his influential Commentaries on the Constitution. See 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution Sec. 1890, p. 746 (1833) It is the view that was adopted by United States Attorney General Homer Cummings before Congress in testifying about the constitutionality of the first federal gun control statue, the Nation Firearms Act of 1934. See The National Firearms Act of 1934: Hearings on H.R. 9066 Before the House Comm. on Ways and Means, 73rd Cong. 6, 13, 19 (1934). As recently as 1986, the United States Congress and President Ronald Reagan explicitly adopted this view in the Firearms Owners' Protection Act. See Pub. L. No. 99-308, Sec. 1(b) (1986). Significantly, the individual rights view is embraced by the preponderance of legal scholarship on the subject, which, I note, includes articles by academics on both ends of the political spectrum. See, e.g., William Van Alstyne, 'The Second Amendment and the Personal Right to Arms', 43 Duke L.J. 1236 (1994), Akhil Reed Amar, 'The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment,' 101 Yale L.J. 1193 (1992); Sanford Levinson, 'The Embarrassing Second Amendment,' 99 Yale L.J. 637 (1989), Don Kates, 'Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment,' 82 Mich. L. Rev. 204 (1983).
In light of this vast body of evidence, I believe it is clear that the Constitution protects the private ownership of firearms for lawful purposes.(1) As I was reminded during my confirmation hearing, some hold a different view and would, in effect, read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution. I must respectfully disagree with this view, for when I was sworn as Attorney General of the United States, I took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. That responsibility applies to all parts of the Constitution, including the Second Amendment.
Thank you for your interest in this matter.
Sincerely,
(signed)
John Ashcroft
Attorney General
----------------
(1) Of course, the individual rights view of the Second Amendment does not prohibit Congress from enacting laws restricting firearms ownership for compelling state interests, such as prohibiting firearms ownership by convicted felons, just as the First Amendment does not prohibit shouting "fire" in a crowded movie theater. As Samuel Adams explained at the Massachusetts ratifying convention, the proposed Constitution should "never [be] construed ... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." Reprinted in 2 B. Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History 675 (1971) (emphasis added).
It's your choice. Think for yourself or be manipulated.
Charley Reese, The Orlando Sentinel on October 26, 2000
[In dealing with the Inquisition for Revenue Securement, a] man is presumed guilty until he proves his innocence, at his own expense of money, energy and lifespan. Is that what the Founding Fathers had in mind?
Poul Anderson, Operation Luna 93 (1999)
. . . I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation.
The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of the Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, June 4, 1940, address to the House of Commons
[This is what America once meant to the world — Webmaster]
...with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1801
We are satisfied that this experience seriously compromises the welfare of the fox.
British Treasury civil servant Lord Burns, in his inquiry on fox hunting
The Constitution means now what its text reasonably conveyed to intelligent and informed people at the time it was drafted and ratified.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, February 24, 2001
Although I don't own guns, I respect those who do. And I venerate the armed woman as a transcendent symbol of independent female power — from ancient goddesses like the Venus Armata or the knife-wielding Hindu Kali to the pistol-packing babes of 'Charlie's Angels.'
Camille Paglia, May 17, 2000
I make it a habit of citizenship to honor the entire Bill of Rights, not just the Amendments that happen to suit me.
J.C Watts - House of Representatives (R-OK), Remarks Before The National Rifle Association, Annual Convention, Keynote Address, Charlotte, N.C. May 20, 2000
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not are slaves.
George Gordon Notel (Lord) Byron,
Quoted in Linux Journal, April 2000, page 14
Entertainment has frequently been used as a tool of leaders as a means to distract an abused citizenry. The most tyrannical ruler must still beguile his people even as he brutalizes them.
Ridley Scott, Director, Gladiator
About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations.
- Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;
- peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;
- the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies;
- the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;
- a jealous care of the right of election by the people-a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided;
- absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;
- a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them;
- the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;
- economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened;
- the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith;
- encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid;
- the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason;
- freedom of religion;
- freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1801
The individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power, and it issues the coins itself.
Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed, 1974
I do not need a supreme court to tell me what the Constitution says any more than I need a priest to tell me what the Bible says.
Doug Newman
Every time the government pokes one finger into any economic system, it goes to hell in a handbasket.
Victor A. Wagner, Jr., Libertarian Candidate for Teton County Commmissioner
Jackson Hole News, Wednesday, October 11, 2000, page 19A
I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
Bad Mojo, quoted in Linux Journal, April 2000, page 14.
There Was A Time
Mike Logan
There was a time when handshakes
Meant more 'n a contract now.
When if you gave a man your hand
You took a solemn vow.
There was a time when justice
Meant more 'n just playin' a game.
When guilty men weren't turn loose
To rob and kill and maim.
There was a time when marriage
Meant more 'n just sayin' "I do."
When man and wife were mates for life
And worked the tough times through.
There was a time when manners
Meant more 'n just "thanks" and "please."
When men could rise or hold the door
And not feel ill at ease.
There was a time when freedom
Meant more 'n just "What's for me?"
When each right carried with it
Responsibility.
There was a time when fam'lies
Meant more 'n just groups hard pressed.
When mothers still taught daughters
and fathers still knew best.
There was a time when learnin'
Meant more 'n just what's in school
When neighbors helped each other
and we lived by the golden rule.
There was a time when American
Mean strong and proud and free.
When people's thoughts weren't molded
By that wasteland on TV.
There was a time, there was a time.
That time could come again
If wisdom, love and honor
Would rule the hearts of men.
Rope Burns, September, October 1999.
Rope Burns, Box 35, Gene Autry, OK 73436
(Rope Burns is the tradezine of "the Cowboy Entertainment and Trade Industry")
The Russian people get punished for betraying their state. But why does nothing happen when the state betrays its people?
Valentina Avliene, mother of a cook on the Russian submarine Kursk
Quoted in The Economist, 26 August 2000
You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
the movie The Matrix
Nature rejects the monarch, not the man;
The subject, not the citizen; for kings
And subjects, mutual foes, forever play
A losing game into each other's hands,
Whose stakes are vice and misery. The man
Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanized automaton.
Percy Shelley, Queen Mab
Quoted on Prof. Bryan Caplan's web page.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?
John Maynard Keynes
Quoted in Linux Journal, April 2000, page 14
In my view there is a sense in which education ought to be democratic and another sense in which it ought not. It ought to be democratic in the sense of being available, without distinction of sex, colour, class, race or religion, to all who can — and will — diligently accept it. But once the young people are inside the school there must be no attempt to establish a fictitious egalitarianism between the idlers and the dunces on one hand and the clever and industrious on the other. A modern nation needs a very large class of genuinely educated people and it is the primary function of schools and universities to supply them. To lower standards or disguise inequalities is fatal.
If this sounds harsh, I would observe that the opposite policy is really devised to soothe the inferiority complex not of the idlers and dunces but of their parents. Do not be in the least afraid that those who live out their school-days — which should be brief — on the back bench of the lowest class will suffer any trauma when they see promotion and honours and official approval going to the diligent minority. They are stronger than it. They can punch its head and kick its stern. All the distinctions they really care about — the popularity and the success in games — go not to it but to them. They enjoy their school days very much. Our real problem is to see that they impede as little as possible the purposes for which school really exists.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
Preface, "Screwtape Proposes a Toast", 1962
(Not to mention " sooth[ing] the inferiority complex[es]" of their babysitters and jailers, the professional bureaucrats who fail even to reach the devalued standards now attached to that once noble honorific "teacher." — Webmaster)
Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness.
It comes to bring us evil --only evil-- and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs.
Roger Q. Mills of Texas, 1887
Quoted more than once during the alcohol prohibition debates in Congress.
The purpose of the pistol is to stop a fight that somebody else has started, almost always at very short range.
Col. (ret.) Jeff Cooper, Jeff Cooper's Commentaries, Vol. 7, No. 10, September, 1999
Note: Col. Cooper probably knows more about pistols than you and I combined, unless you are Col. Cooper.
Bushido is all very well in its way, but it is no match for a 30-06.
Col. (ret.) Jeff Cooper, Jeff Cooper's Commentaries, Vol. 7, No. 8, July, 1999
Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson emphasized in West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette — that: "One's right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no election."
Nat Hentoff, Column, Sept. 27, 1999
To analyze the problem of action, the first thing to grasp is that government, no matter how good, can only do certain things. Government can't raise crops, maintain small, scattered structures... or bring to bear on small, local matters that combination of solicitude, foresight, and skill which we call husbandry... [H]usbandry is the heart of conservation. The second thing to grasp is that when we lay conservation in the lap of the government, it will always do the things it can, even if they are not the things that most need doing.
Aldo Leopold, "Land Use and Democracy"Audobon Magazine, September, 1942, as quoted in Range Magazine for Fall, 1999
I will not vote for Democrats, it's too dangerous for the country.
Segei Krushchev, son of former Soviet Party Secretary Nikita Krushchev, now a U.S. citizen teaching in Rhode Island, quoted in National Review for July 12, 1999, as quoted in Range Magazine for Fall, 1999
[The Republican Party] should drop the elephant as your symbol and adopt the jellyfish. You could cover the body with stars and color each tentacle red, white, or blue.
L. Neil Smith
The Second Amendment is simply too important to leave to the gun nuts.
A Liberal Democrat's Lament by Robert Cottrol
[The Second Amendment] is pretty clear: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' Tell me where there is anything in that amendment that allows us to do this under the Constitution of the United States of America? I stood right there where the pages are sitting and took the oath twice when I came to the Senate to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and that is what I am doing now, and that is what I will continue to do.
There is nothing in those words about background checks. There is nothing in there about the people having a right to keep and bear certain kinds of arms. There is nothing in there that says handguns can be kept or not kept where shotguns can. Nothing. I sure do not see anything in there that gives Congress any leeway whatsoever to infringe second amendment rights whenever some group of anti-gun zealots think what they like to call the 'public interest' requires it. The public interest is to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States of America. That is what the public interest is and nothing else. You trample on the Constitution; you trample on the public interest.
Senator Bob Smith, New Hampshire --Congressional Record, July 28, 1999
America's Longest War was declared by Richard Nixon more than a quarter of a century ago. It has been a total failure in keeping drugs from entering the country. Whether it has significantly contributed to the reduction of drug abuse is debatable. But there is one arena in which victory has been achieved: the Constitution has surrendered. If there is any phase of American life in which the rights of the people have not diminished during the drug war, it has escaped my notice. The anti-constitutional effects of the drug war have been so relentlessly obvious for so long that a cynic might wonder whether the Constitution is not the true enemy of the drug warriors.
Steven Duke, "The Drug War on the Constitution", October 5, 1999, Cato Institute seminar "Beyond Prohibition - An Adult Approach to Drug Policies in the 21st Century"
Let me tell you, back home in Wyoming persons who ply the psychotheraputic trade are thought to be somewhere between baboons and tax collectors on the chain of evolution.
Sarah Andrews, Only Flesh and Bones 21 (1998)
He who walks righteously and speaks what is right, who rejects gain from extortion and keeps his hand from accepting bribes, who stops his ears against plots of murder and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil-- This is the man who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the mountain fortress. His bread will be supplied, and water will not fail him. Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar.
Isaiah 33.15-17
(This is the text Dave Dawson read at Jim Hume's funeral on September 8, 1999. Jim donated the land where the Wyoming Patriot Cemetery is located, and is now interred there.)
For the nation's elites, the Second Amendment has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the Bill of Rights, constantly attacked by editorial writers, police chiefs seeking scapegoats, demagoging politicians, and most recently even by Rosie O'Donnell, no less. It is threatened by opportunistic legislative efforts, even when sponsors acknowledge their proposed legislation would have little impact on crime and violence.
A Liberal Democrat's Lament by Robert Cottrol
The government is like tree roots, if you let them go too far they'll get into your pipes, and there is no Roto-Ruter [sic] quick fix for federal intrusion.
Alvin Broughton, 28 July, 1999
Dear Rosie:
I respect your First Amendment rights, I really do. Lord knows I fought for them in law school, just as I would have fought for them when I served in the Marines.
I respect your intense dislike for guns. That is your right — to unilaterally disarm yourself and throw yourself upon the mercy of the government and any assailant who wants to take or do anything to you or your loved ones. Those too are your rights.
Apparently you do not respect my rights to exercise the most fundamental of all human rights — self-defense — which in this day and age may only be practically effected with personal arms.
I can live with that. Now here is my challenge to you. You give up all your guns. Every last one of them. The shotgun in the closet, the pistol in the nightstand. No guns in the House of Rosie.
No cheating! No private security! Sorry, you have to live under the same conditions you would condemn others to.
Take for instance, my hypothetical friend Vonda. She is a single mother of two and lives on the wrong side of the tracks. Break-ins are common. Police response is slow to non-existent. That .38 she could have had, which incidentally she is guaranteed under the Supreme Law of the Land, our Constitution, under your rules, Rosie's Diktat, she will no longer have.
The next break-in Vonda suffers at 2:30 in the morning may leave her a statistic. Kind of like the lady who, in real life, lived two blocks from me. She suffered a break-in, but didn't have a gun to protect her and her kids. The bad boys tortured her with an electric iron so they could have money for their drug habit.
Thanks, Rosie. Vonda's in-laws will thank you, because Vonda isn't with us today. Her body was found raped and beaten. She's a victim — a statistic. She's also real. There are Vondas all across the United States, who live alone and, because of laws like those you love, are defenseless.
This is nothing new, the evil have always preyed upon the weak and defenseless. But if Vonda had had her own gun, she could simply have shown it to her attacker, and like the 2.5 million Americans who defend themselves against murder, rape, robbery and violent assault each year, she could have sent the bad boys running with no shots fired.
Now I said no cheating. This is putting your money where your mouth is: You move into Vonda's old first-floor apartment. She couldn't afford bars on the windows or an alarm system, and in the name of fairness, neither should you spend your millions on either. You get the same police protection Vonda got — essentially a chalk mark around her body and some gory pictures to show to a jury.
That's it Rosie. All I ask is that you put your money where your mouth is, and live under the same conditions of primal fear you would condemn Vonda and her sisters to.
Rick Vaughn
Quoted in Jon E. Dougherty. Dear Rosie: Live by our gun laws, Monday, June 14, 1999
If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retributions.
Justice Louis Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead et al. v. United States, 277 U.S. 485 (1928)
The First Amendment is concerned with expression, and we reject the notion that the admixture of functionality necessarily puts expression beyond the protections of the Constitution...
Whether we are surveilled by our government, by criminals, or by our neighbors, it is fair to say that never has our ability to shield our affairs from prying eyes been at such a low ebb. The availability and use of secure encryption may offer an opportunity to reclaim some portion of the privacy we have lost. Government efforts to control encryption thus may well implicate not only the First Amendment rights of cryptographers intent on pushing the boundaries of their science, but also the constitutional rights of each of us as potential recipients of encryption's bounty. Viewed from this perspective, the government's efforts to retard progress in cryptography may implicate the Fourth Amendment, as well as the right to speak anonymously, the right against compelled speech, and the right to informational privacy.
Judge Betty B. Fletcher
San Francisco Court of Appeals
Bernstein v. USDOJ, 97-16686, 4215, 4236 — 4243
United States Court Of Appeals For The Fourth Circuit
Christy Brzonkala, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Antonio J. Morrison; James Landale Crawford, Defendants-Appellees, and Cornell D. Brown; William E. Landsidle, in his capacity as Comptroller of the Commonwealth, Defendants.
We the People, distrustful of power, and believing that government limited and dispersed protects freedom best, provided that our federal government would be one of enumerated powers, and that all power unenumerated would be reserved to the several States and to ourselves. Thus, though the authority conferred upon the federal government be broad, it is an authority constrained by no less a power than that of the People themselves. "[T]hat these limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written." Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 176 (1803). These simple truths of power bestowed and power withheld under the Constitution have never been more relevant than in this day, when accretion, if not actual accession, of power to the federal government seems not only unavoidable, but even expedient.
These foundational principles of our constitutional government dictate resolution of the matter before us. For we address here a congressional statute, Subtitle C of the Violence Against Women Act, 42 U.S.C. § 13981, that federally punishes noncommercial intrastate violence, but is defended under Congress' power "[t]o regulate commerce . . . among the several States," U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3, and that punishes private conduct, but is defended under Congress' power "to enforce, by appropriate legislation" the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee that "[n]o State shall. . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," U.S. Const. amend. XIV, §§ 1, 5. Such a statute, we are constrained to conclude, simply cannot be reconciled with the principles of limited federal government upon which this Nation is founded. . . .
(emphasis in original)
Upheld in Christy Brzonkala, petitioner v. Antonio J. Morrison et al.
Thanks to attorney William Curley for bringing that item to your webmaster's attention.
Those that value their money more than their liberty, will end up with neither.
Aaron Zelman, JPFO Director
"It's not a brave man that's dangerous," continued the dealer. "It's the cowards that scare me." He paused that this might sink home. "Fello' came in here las' Toosday," he went on. "He got into some misunderstanding about the drinks. Well, sir, before we could put him out of business, he'd hurt two perfectly innocent onlookers. They'd no more to do with it than you have," the dealer explained to me.
"Were they badly hurt?"I asked.
"One of 'em was. He's died since."
"What became of the man?"
"Why, we put him out of business. I told you. He died that night. But there was no occasion for any of it; and that's why I never like to be around when there's a coward. You can't tell. He'll always go shooting before it's necessary, and there's no security who he'll hit. But a man like that black-headed guy is (the dealer indicated the Virginian) need never worry you. And there's another point why there's no need to worry about him: it'll be too late!"
Owen Wister, The Virginian Oct. 1998 ed. 25
The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt against the reality!
Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943
From the Arabs I have learned one thing: if you are led by authority, that means you are lead by a halter.… If you wish to hear more from me, give and take reason — because I am not the kind of man to satisfy his hunger on the picture of a steak.
Adelard of Bath, early XIIth Century scholar who visited Cordoba after the Moorish capital fell to the Christians.
It is in truth not for glory, nor riches nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom--for that alone which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
Declaration of Arbroath, 1320
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