Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2024-06-10 Jun 10, 2024The test for whether one is living in a police state is that those who are charged with enforcing the law are allowed to break the laws with impunity.~ Jon RolandThe government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. 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 the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution.~ Justice Louis D. BrandeisThe vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.~ Lady Marguerite Blessington Jun 7, 2024Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen... If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.~ Justice Louis D. BrandeisThe function of the prosecutor under the federal Constitution is not to tack as many skins of victims as possible against the wall. His function is to vindicate the rights of the people as expressed in the laws and give those accused of crime a fair trial.~ Justice William O. DouglasI should, indeed, prefer twenty men to escape death through mercy, than one innocent to be condemned unjustly.~ Sir John Fortescue Jun 6, 2024Lawyers [are] operators of the toll bridge across which anyone in search of justice has to pass.~ Jane Bryant QuinnA guilty man is punished as an example for the mob; an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen.~ Jean de la BruyereJudges ... rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times.~ Justice Warren E. Burger Jun 5, 2024What, then, is the law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. ... since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force -- for the same reason -- cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individual groups. ... But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.~ Frederic Bastiat Jun 4, 2024When courts fail to engage in oversight or even distort the Constitution to rationalize the ultra vires actions of government, and when academics and political activists aid and abet them in this activity by devising ingenious rationalizations for ignoring the Constitution’s words, they are playing a most dangerous game. For they are putting at risk the legitimacy of the lawmaking process and risking the permanent disaffection of significant segments of the people.~ Brannon P. DenningI say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy. You can only punish. I warn you that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches — its upholders as well as its defiers.~ Jerome LawrenceThe dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society depend so much upon an upright and skillful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, and both should be checks upon that.~ John Adams Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print