“If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men.” IfsMenTryingMindMayBookGovernmentTodaySchoolNextTeachCrimeEvolutionTomorrowCatholicNewspapersSessionPublic SchoolBansProtestantsPrivate SchoolScopes Trial Author:Clarence Darrow
“... the smaller the domain where choices among alternatives are made collectively, the smaller will be the probability that any individual's preference gets overruled.” MadeGovernmentChoicesIndividualAlternativesProbabilityPreferenceDomain Book:Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy and Order Source: Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy and Order
“People who live in states have as a rule never experienced the state of nature and vice-versa, and have no practical possibility of moving from the one to the other ... On what grounds, then, do people form hypotheses about the relative merits of state and state of nature? ... My contention here is that preferences for political arrangements of society are to a large extent produced by these very arrangements, so that political institutions are either addictive like some drugs, or allergy-inducing like some others, or both, for they may be one thing for some people and the other for others.” PeopleMayStatesGovernmentMovingFormPoliticalOne ThingPossibilityDrugInstitutionsVicesPracticalsMeritRelativeArrangementsHypothesisPreferenceVice VersaContentionAllergiesPolitical Institutions Author:Anthony de Jasay
“There is hardly a congressman prepared to go home until he has at least one speech printed and sent to his constituents, and he won't let anybody interrupt his harangue until he has made all his useful suggestions about the 24 states of the Union, and especially the district he represents.” MadeStatesHomeGovernmentSpeechUnionsPreparedSuggestionsPrintedConstituentsCongressman Author:Alexis de Tocqueville
“Rights are not self-evident. They're not unalienable. They are subject to modification just like anything else.” SelfGovernmentRightsSubjectsEvidentModification Author:Alan Dershowitz
“We, the People of this country, have no unalienable rights... all our rights are subject to modification... the Constitution of the United States of America is nothing more than a piece of paper and... our government should not be restrained by the Constitution because our government can do good things for people.” PeopleShouldCountryStatesGovernmentAmericaCan DoUnitedUnited StatesPiecesRightsSubjectsPaperConstitutionGood ThingsUnited States Of AmericaConstitution Of The United StatesModificationUnalienable Rights Author:Alan Dershowitz
“The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.” FirstsGovernmentPurposePracticeInformationAmendmentsFreedom Of SpeechDominantEmbarrassingFirst AmendmentSuppression Author:William O. Douglas
“These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence.” PeopleGivingHas BeensSelfFeelingsGovernmentSpiritSilenceCreativityResponsibleIndependenceSelf ConfidenceHonoredDissentUnwrittenSuffocatingAmenities Author:William O. Douglas
“But our society - unlike most in the world - presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas. That is the philosophy of the First Amendment; and it is this article of faith that sets us apart from most nations in the world.” WorldFirstsIdeasPhilosophyGovernmentIndividualBeliefNationsLibertyTasteOur SocietyArticlesAmendmentsFirst AmendmentFreedom And LibertyKeepersFrame Of Reference Author:William O. Douglas
“I have lived in countries that were coming out of conflict: Ireland, South Africa, the Czech republic. People there are overflowing with energy.” PeopleCountryEnergyConflictSouthRepublicComing OutIrelandSouth AfricaCzechCzech Republic Author:Brian Eno
