Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2022-08-12 Aug 12, 2022The government expands at will, based on what might be charitably called flimsy constitutional reasoning and less charitably and more accurately called arrogant judicial tyranny. Government authority these days rarely comes from the Constitution as written but from the last carefully crafted misinterpretation of it. This is called legal precedent.~ Linda BowlesJudicial minds have systematically rejected arguments that clashed with their ideologies. Consequently, the forum of last resort has not checked the excesses of the executive and legislative branches.~ Robert DowlutHow does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal; apartheid is legal; Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist urges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people.~ Walter E. Williams Aug 11, 2022When governments use the judiciary to recover “damage,” the courts intrude on the regulatory and revenue responsibilities of legislatures. And when lawsuits based on tenuous legal theories impose high costs on defendants, due process gives way to a form of extortion, with public officials serving as bagmen for private contingency fee lawyers.~ Michael I. KrausNo man suffers injustice without learning, vaguely but surely, what justice is.~ Isaac RosenfeldIn the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.~ Lenny Bruce Aug 10, 2022Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom," it is a very serious consideration ... that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.~ Samuel AdamsOnly the IRS can attach 100% of a tax debtor's wages and/or property. Only the IRS can invade the privacy of a citizen without court process of any kind. Only the IRS can seize property without a court order. Only the IRS can force a citizen to try his case in a special court governed by the IRS. Only the IRS can compel the production of documents, records, and other materials without a court case being in existence. Only the IRS can with impunity publish the details of a citizens debt. Only the IRS can legally, without a court order, subject citizens to electronic surveillance. Only the IRS can force waiver of statute of limitations and other citizen's rights through the threat of Arbitrary assesment. Only the IRS uses extralegal coercion. Threats to witnesses to examine their taxes regularly produces whatever evidence the IRS dictates. Only the IRS is free to violate a written agreement with a citizen. Only the IRS uses reprisals against citizen and public officials alike. Only the IRS can take property on the basis of conjecture. Only the IRS is free to maintain lists of citizen guilty of no crime for the purpose of harassing and monitoring them. Only the IRS envelops all citizens. Only the IRS publicly admits that it's purpose is to instill fear in the citizenry as a technique of performing it's function.~ George V. HansenA functioning police state needs no police.~ William S. Borroughs Aug 9, 2022Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim -- when he defends himself -- as a criminal.~ Frederic BastiatI will now tell you what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill of rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land, and not by the laws of nations. ... Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.~ Thomas JeffersonThe power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charges known to the law, and particularly to deny him judgment by his peers for an indefinite period, is in the highest degree odious, and is the foundation of all totalitarian governments...Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilisation.~ Winston Churchill Aug 8, 2022Why are we proud [to be American]? We are proud, first of all, because from the beginning of this Nation, a man can walk upright, no matter who he is, or who she is. He can walk upright and meet his friend -- or his enemy; and he does not fear that because that enemy may be in a position of great power that he can be suddenly thrown in jail to rot there without charges and with no recourse to justice. We have the habeas corpus act, and we respect it.~ Dwight D. EisenhowerNo government of the Centre would seek powers to imprison individuals who have committed no crime merely on the say-so of "experts" who believe they might commit a crime. No libertarian government would want to reduce our right to trial by jury, to curfew children, to place "anti-social behaviour orders" on citizens, to conduct compulsory DNA and drug tests on all offenders. No government that was concerned with freedom would seek to ban pursuits that harm no one, such as foxhunting, simply because they are unpopular. No government that has respect for its citizens would seek to interfere so intimately with so many of their private activities -- for instance, what right does a government have to tell me under what terms and conditions I may sell my house. The transaction should, quite simply, be none of their business.~ George ThomasThe sword of the law should never fall but on those whose guilt is so apparent as to be pronounced by their friends as well as foes.~ Thomas Jefferson Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print