Quote of The day.......

"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty.

It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and 

To misapply even the best of laws.

He that would make his own liberty 

Secure must guard even his enemy from oppression;

For if he violates his duty he establishes 

A precedent that will reach to himself."

Thomas Paine(1737-1809) US Founding father, 
Source: Dissertation on First Principles of Government, 
7 July 1795

                     *    *    *    *   *

"Sometimes the law defends plunder and 

participates in it.

Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and 

danger that their acts would otherwise involve..

 But how is this legal plunder to be identified?

Quite simply.

 See if the law takes from some persons 

what belongs to them and gives it to 

the other persons to whom 

it doesn't belong.

See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of 

another by doing

what the citizen himself cannot do without 

committing a crime.

Then abolish that law without delay ... 

No legal plunder;

this is the principle of justice, peace, order,

stability, harmony and logic.

"-- Frederic Bastiat(1801-1850) 
French economist, statesman, 
- the French Revolution of February 1848.

                   *    *    *    *     *

"All bad precedents began as justifiable measures."

-- Gaius Julius Caesar(100-44 B.C.) Roman emperor

                  *    *     *    *    *

"Censorship always defeats its own purpose,

 for it creates, in the end,

the kind of society that is incapable of

 exercising real discretion...

In the long run it will create a generation 

incapable of appreciating the difference between

 independence of thought and subservience.

"-- Henry Steele Commager(1902-1998) 
Historian and author 
Source: Freedom, Loyalty and Dissent, 1954

Quote of the day...

“There are no ordinary people. 

You have never talked to a mere mortal. 

Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - 

these are mortal, and 

their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. 

But it is immortals whom we joke with, 

work with, marry, snub and exploit - 

immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. 

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually 

solemn.-We must play. 

But our merriment must be of that kind 

(and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) 

which exists between people 

who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - 

no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

― C.S. Lewis

As offered by Janathan Hill @St.francis.

Quote of the Day........

"It seems as if the Department [of Justice]

sees the value of the Bill of Rights as

no more than obstacles to be overcome."

-- Prof. Sanford H. Kadish

Quote of the Day.......

"The internal effects of a mutable policy are calamitous.

It poisons the blessings of liberty itself.

It will be of little avail to the people that

the laws are made by men of their own choice,

if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read,

or so incoherent that they cannot be understood;

if they be repealed before they are promulgated,

or undergo such incessant changes that 

no man who knows what the law is today 

can guess what it will be tomorrow."

-- James Madison
(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President


             *    *    *    *    *


"Sometimes the law defends plunder and 

participates in it.

Thus the beneficiaries are spared 

the shame and danger that

their acts would otherwise involve...

But how is this legal plunder to be identified?

Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons

what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons

to whom it doesn't belong.

See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of

another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do

without committing a crime.

Then abolish that law without delay .. No legal plunder;

this is the principle of justice, peace, order,

stability, harmony and logic."

-- Frederic Bastiat
"The Law" by Frederic Bastiat, 1850

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam../ Monuments Men.....

If history has anything to teach us,

It is not about winning war/s

Nor even it is about lossing one

But of we were to loose our humanity 

We loose not only ourself but 

Everything one has come to value.

Quote of the Day......

Facts are stubborn things;

and whatever may be our wishes,

our inclinations,

or the dictates of our passion,

they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

-- John Adams

(1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President

                 *     *    *    *    *

"Law logic -- an artificial system of reasoning,

exclusively used in courts of justice,

but good for nothing anywhere else."


-- John Quincy Adams
(1767-1848) 6th US President


                  *     *     *     *     *

In view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, 

there is in this country no superior, dominant, 

ruling class of citizens.There is no caste here. 

Our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows 

nor tolerates classes among citizens."

-- John Marshall Harlan
(1899-1971) U. S. Supreme Court Justice
Source: Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896

                    *     *     *     *     *

Laws are like cobwebs which may catch small flies,

But let wasps and hornets break through.

-- Jonathan Swift
(1667-1745) Anglo-Irish Poet and Satirist
Source: A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind, 
1707, & Gullivers Travels, 1726

                     *     *     *     *     *

When you have no basis for argument, 

abuse the plaintiff.

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator

To be enlightened.....

There is nothing to prove in this world

Except to find out for oneself.

Quote of the day.....

"Nothing inspires murderous mayhem in

human beings more reliably than

sexual repression."

----Psychology Today article 4/20/2010

                *    *    *    *    *

       Nothing inspires murderous mayhem in human beings more reliably than sexual repression. Denied food, water, or freedom of movement, people will get desperate and some may lash out at what they perceive as the source of their problems, albeit in a weakened state. But if expression of sexuality is thwarted, the human psyche tends to grow twisted into grotesque, enraged perversions of desire.

      Unfortunately, the distorted rage resulting from sexual repression rarely takes the form of rebellion against the people and institutions behind the repression. (If it did, perhaps we'd be reading of abused priests rather than priests as abusers.)  Instead, the rage is generally directed at helpless victims who are sacrificed to the sick gods of guilt, shame, and ignorant pride.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-dawn/201004/sexual-repression-the-malady-considers-itself-the-remedy

Unbecoming of Moses....

When a state begins to interfere in most issues

Where there is no regulatory Role to play 

In its overreach where the human agency that overseas it

Increasingly begins to invest itself in 

the abuse and misuse of its institutional mechanisms 

that are invested with Vast Powers by its constituents 

making the society unstable and morally vulnerable 

in lacking critical insight for it to guide 

Its citizenry towards A right direction

Thus breeding incompetence, unaccountability,

Nepotism and corrupt profiteering

On a scale that undermines its own historical viability.

Quote of the Day...

As for adopting the ways which

the state has provided for remedying the evil,

I know not of such ways.

They take too much time, and

A man's life will be gone."

-- Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862)

About the Burglers....

The fear of burglars is not only 

the fear of being robbed, 

but  also the fear of a sudden and 

unexpected clutch out of the darkness.

---Elias canetti.

For they know not what they do......

The secrecies of a state is state of affairs 

where people that govern are allowed to 

persecute others recklessly without 

charging them of any real crime 

leading to the temptation of individuals 

acting as a network of racketeers 

in subverting  justice and administration 

in the name of protecting their citizenry

benefit and fulfill their private interests

undermine the fine and long standing laws 

and traditions of a nation state

making the innocent citizens suffer and 

pay a price for a flawed governance.

Quotes of the day.....

Individuality is the aim of political liberty.

By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action

and of being as comports with order and 

the rights of others,

the institutions render him truly a free man.

He is left to pursue his means of 

happiness in his own manner.

-- James Fenimore Cooper(1789-1851)

 American Novelist 
Source: The American Democrat, 1838

              *    *    *    *    *

Those who won our independence believed that 

the final end of the State was to make men free 

to develop their faculties...

They valued liberty both as an end and as a means.

They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness 

and courage to be the secret of liberty.

Justice Louis D. Brandeis(1856-1941) 
US Supreme Court Justice

Source: Whitney v. California, 1927

                *    *    *    *    *  

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that 

the three things we crave most in life

happiness, freedom, and peace of mind

are always attained by giving them to someone else.

Peyton Conway March(1864-1955) US Army General, 

US Army Chief of Staff during the final year of WWI

                 *    *    *    *   *

The great inlet by which a colour for 

oppression has entered into the world is by 

one man's pretending to determine 

concerning the happiness of another.

Edmund Burke(1729-1797) Irish-born British statesman, 

parliamentary orator, and political thinker .

Quote of the day.....

"He is free who knows how to keep in his own hands

the power to decide at each step, the course of his life,

and who lives in a society which does not block

the exercise of that power."

-- Salvador De Madariaga

(1886-1978 ), Spanish writer, diplomat, and historian,

noted for his service at the League of Nations

Source: New York Times, 29 January 1957

Quotes of the Day...

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands

in moments of comfort and convenience, but

where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

                        * * * * *

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than

sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

                         * * * * *

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved

in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.

He who accepts evil without protesting against it

is really cooperating with it.

                          * * * * *

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but

a molder of consensus.

                           * * * * *

I look to a day when people will not be judged

by the color of their skin,

but by the content of their character.

 
                           * * * * *

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of

this period of social transition was

not the strident clamor of the bad people,

but the appalling silence of the good people.

                           *  *  *  *  *
           
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for

those who remain neutral in times of

 great moral conflict.

                       *   *   *   *   *

A lie cannot live.

                        *   *   *   *   *

The first question which the priest and

the Levite asked was:

'If I stop to help this man,

what will happen to me?' But...

the good Samaritan reversed the question:

'If I do not stop to help this man,

what will happen to him?'

                      *   *   *   *   *

If we are to go forward,

we must go back and rediscover those precious values -

that all reality hinges on moral foundations and

that all reality has spiritual control.

                     *   *   *   *   *

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

I can never be what I ought to be until

you are what you ought to be.

This is the interrelated structure of reality.

             *   *   *   *   *

There is nothing more tragic than to find

an individual bogged down

in the length of life, devoid of breadth.

              *   *   *   *   *

One who breaks an unjust law that conscience

tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts

the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse

the conscience of the community over its injustice,

is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.


                 *   *   *   *   *

We will have to repent in this generation

not merely for the vitriolic words and

actions of the bad people,

but for the appalling silence of the good people.

                 *   *   *   *   *

Property is intended to serve life, and

no matter how much we surround it

with rights and respect,

it has no personal being.

It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

             *   *   *   *   *

Pity may represent little more than

the impersonal concern

which prompts the mailing of a check,

but true sympathy is the personal concern

which demands the giving of one's soul.

              *   *   *   *   *

Philanthropy is commendable,

but it must not cause the philanthropist to

overlook the circumstances of economic injustice

which make philanthropy necessary.

                *   *   *   *   *

Everything that we see is a shadow

cast by that which we do not see.

                 *   *   *   *    *

All progress is precarious, and

the solution of one problem brings us

face to face with another problem.             

Never forget that everything Hitler did

in genmany was Legal.

              *    *    *    *    *

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and

importance and should be undertaken

with painstaking excellence.

               *    *    *    *    *

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable

Every step towards the goal of justice requirs

sacrifice, suffering, and struggle

The tireless exertions and passionate concern of

dedicated individuals.

                  *    *    *    *    *

The time is always right to do what is right.

                   *   *   *   *   *

What ever your life's work is do it well.

A man should do his job so well that the living ,

the dead,and the unborn could do it better.

----- Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
  

Quote of the day......

"Those who won our independence believed

that the final end of the State was

to make men free to develop their faculties...

They valued liberty both as an end and as a means.

They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness

and courage to be the secret of liberty."

-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

(1856-1941) US Supreme Court Justice

Source: Whitney v. California, 1927

Being and Becoming....

Be they self

Discover and experience everything A being does

Become they self in complete and

Even become free of They self

Do not worry what others do

With Themselves

For it will only lead to

Unbecoming of They self.

True Righteousness.....

This is the sum of all true righteousness

Deal with others as thou wouldst thyself be dealt by

Do nothing to thy neighbor which thou

wouldst not have him do to thee hereafter.

---- The Mahabharata,circa 800 BCE

Quote of the day......

"Truth does not become more true 

by virtue of the fact that 

the entire world agrees with it,

nor less so even if the whole world 

disagrees with it."

-- Maimonides(1135-1204) 

What Prevails......

In every organized activity

it is the Order / Ritual

that makes it superior to others

Yet in the nature of reality

"that is and Yet to be"

Order / Ritual is has little or

no superior disposition.