October, 2000
"We need to talk."
God
Sir Thomas More: ...The
law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll
stick to what's legal.
Roper: Then you set man's law above
God's!
More: No, far below; but let me draw your
attention to a fact - I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and
wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no
voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forester.
Roper: ...You'd give the Devil the benefit
of law?
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great
road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to
do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down,
and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the
laws all being flat? The country's planted thick with laws from coast to
coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're
just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in
the winds that would blow then?
Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake."
"A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts,"
by Robert Bolt, paperback (Vintage Books 1990. Also available in turtleback (Demco Media 1990).
(In)credulous
"Six million Jews died in concentration
camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in
slaughterhouses." Ingrid Newkirk, National Director of People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in Frederick Goodwin and
Adrian Morrison, "Science and Self-Doubt," Reason Magazine
(October, 2000)
"We live in an age of moral
self-doubt." Frederick Goodwin and Adrian Morrison,
"Science and Self-Doubt," Reason
Magazine (October, 2000)
"One of the peculiar sins of the
twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin
of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in
God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in
anything." Malcolm Muggeridge
"Control yourself or someone else will
control you." Anonymous
"Experience should teach us to be most on our
guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.
Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their
liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in
insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without
understanding." Olmstead v. U.S., 277
U.S. 438, 479 (1928), Mr. Justice Brandeis (dissenting).
"All wisdom does not reside in laws
passed by Congress."
J. Timothy Sprehe, "Fed info locators must put public
before data" (Federal Computer Week, Aug. 31, 1998)
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely
exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may
be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral
busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity
may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good
will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their
own conscience." C.S. Lewis
"We vote our fears, not our hopes. We'll pay
without limit for a war on drugs, but not to heal the addicted. We
lavish money on the Pentagon, but parse it out to our schools." Max
Frankel, "Media
Madness: The Revolution So Far," (lecture
at the Aspen Institute, July 16, 1998)
"Law can never make us as secure as we are when we do not need
it." Alexander M. Bickel
"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's
habits." Mark
Twain
"We are not a nation in which each person is
a law unto himself or herself, but a nation of ordered liberty." Washington v.
Glucksburg, 1996 WL 650919, No. 96-110, page 4 (U.S. (Wash.) Nov. 8,
1996), Brief Amici Curiae of the U.S. Catholic Conference, et
al.
"If judges don't do their work well then
civilization doesn't work well." Charlie Munger
"No man is above the law and no man below
it." Theodore Roosevelt
"From its founding the Nation's basic
commitment has been to foster the dignity and well-being of all persons
within its borders." Goldberg v.
Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970)
"While the courts have often struggled with
the scope and meaning of the word 'liberty,' it is plain that life is
necessary to the exercise of any other right or liberty." Washington v.
Glucksburg, 1996 WL 650919, No. 96-110, page 5 (U.S. (Wash.) Nov. 8,
1996), Brief Amici Curiae of the U.S. Catholic Conference, et
al.
"Liberty is responsibility. That is why most
men dread it." George Bernard Shaw
"Just as the open society is based on
humility with respect to claims of truth, it is also based on a sense of
the flaws in human nature. The philosophy of free expression doubts
whether anyone can safely be entrusted with power to determine truth for
others." Jack Fuller, "News Values: Ideas for an Information Age"
"How is it, Dr. Johnson asked, in Taxation
no Tyranny, that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty coming from
the drivers of slaves? How indeed? One might equally well ask how it is
that those with the greatest aptitude for applauding the arbitrary
exercise of power are most insistent in proclaiming the virtues of
freedom." Malcolm Muggeridge, describing western
intellectuals who fawned over the USSR during Stalin's reign of
terror
"[L]iving together in a community requires
accommodation, compromise, and limitations on one's choices in order to
protect the common good." Washington v.
Glucksburg, 1996 WL 650919, No. 96-110, page 6 (U.S. (Wash.) Nov. 8,
1996), Brief Amici Curiae of the U.S. Catholic Conference, et al.
"...error of opinion may be tolerated where
reason is left free to combat it." Thomas
Jefferson, First
Inaugural Address
"Our civilization has decided . . . that
determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be
trusted to trained men. . . . When it wants a library catalogued, or the
solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its
specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious,
it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing
was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity." G.
K. Chesterton
"Just as the strength of the Internet is
chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and
cacophony of the unfettered speech that the First Amendment
protects." ACLU v. Reno,
Civil Action NO. 96-963, 1996 WL 311865 (E.D. Pa. June 12, 1996)
"Written words are less apt to incite or
provoke to mass action than spoken words, speech being the premiere and
direct communication with the emotions. Few are the riots caused by
publication alone, few are the mobs that have not had their immediate
origin in harangue. The vulnerability of various forms of communication
to community control must be proportioned to their impact upon other
community interests." Kunz v. New York, 340
U.S. 290 (1951) J. Jackson, dissenting
"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of
civilization." Eugene Debs
"Never in human history, it is safe to
assert, have there been so many actual and potential liberators as in
the last half century [1920 - 1970], and so little liberation; so many
and so loud shouts for freedom, and so much enslavement."
Malcolm Muggeridge
"A revolutionary always digs graves. In fact,
he does nothing but dig graves - most of the time other people's graves,
as has been amply proved by Stalin, Mao and Fidel Castro." Cabrera Infante, "Mea Cuba"
"No rule is useful to live under a
bloodthirsty tyranny, except perhaps one, the same as in times of
plague: flee as far away as you can." Francesco
Guicciardini
"We have the Bill of Rights. What we need is
a Bill of Responsibilities." Bill Maher
"As the most participatory form of mass
speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from
government intrusion." ACLU v. Reno,
Civil Action NO. 96-963, 1996 WL 311865 (E.D. Pa. June 12, 1996)
"...reading facilitates the development of
humans as free, individual beings." Jack Fuller, "News Values: Ideas for an Information
Age"
"Because of the solitude in which it is born,
the speed at which it can be reproduced and circulated, the secrecy with
which it conveys its message and the lasting mark on people's conscience
of literary images, the written word has revealed a stubborn resistance
against being enslaved." Mario Vargas Llosa
Bridge to Hawaii
A man was walking along the beach and found a
bottle. He looked around and didn't see anyone so he opened it. A genie
appeared and thanked the man for letting him out.
The genie said, "For your kindness I will
grant you one wish, but only one." The man thought for a minute and
said, "I have always wanted to go to Hawaii but have never been
able to because I'm afraid of flying and ships make me claustrophobic
and ill. So I wish for a road to be built from here to Hawaii."
The genie thought for a few minutes and said,
"No, I don't think I can do that. Just think of all the work
involved with the pilings needed to hold up the highway and how deep
they would have to be to reach the bottom of the ocean. Think of all the
pavement that would be needed. No, that is just too much to ask."
The man thought for a minute and then told the
genie, "There is one other thing that I have always wanted. I would
like to be able to understand women. What makes them laugh and cry?
Basically, what makes them tick?"
The genie considered for a few minutes and said,
"So, do you want two lanes or four?"
