Government Is The Agent Of

It Would Be A Healthy Exercise For Every Politician To Look In The Mirror Every Morning And Remind Himself That He Holds Office Only Because, In A Two-man Race Against Another Mediocrity, A Modest Majority Of Those Half-informed People Who Imagined That Their Votes Mattered Reckoned That He Was The Lesser Evil. And They Weren't Too Sure About That.

It Can Be Exalting To Belong To A Church That Is Five Hundred Years Behind The Times And Sublimely Indifferent To Fashion; It Is Mortifying To Belong To A Church That Is Five Minutes Behind The Times, Huffing And Puffing To Catch Up.

People Who Create Things Nowadays Can Expect To Be Prosecuted By Highly Moralistic People Who Are Incapable Of Creating Anything. There Is No Way To Measure The Chilling Effect On Innovation That Results From The Threats Of Taxation, Regulation And Prosecution Against Anything That Succeeds. We'll Never Know How Many Ideas Our Government Has Aborted In The Name Protecting Us.

A Belief In Moral Absolutes Should Always Make Us More, Not Less, Critical Of Both Sides In Any Conflict. This Doesn't Mean That Both Sides Are Equally Wrong; It Means That Since We All Fall Short Of Moral Perfection, Even The Side Whose Cause Is Truly Righteous May Commit Terrible Acts Of Violence In Defense Of That Cause -- And, Worse, May Feel Quite Justified In Committing Them. That Is The Difference Between Being Righteous And Being Self-righteous. Moral Standards Are Absolute; But Human Fidelity To Them Is Always Relative.

Like Psychoanalysis, Constitutional Jurisprudence Has Become A Game Without Rules. By Defying The Plain Meaning Of Words, Ignoring Context And History, And Using A Little Ingenuity, You Can Make The Constitution Mean Anything You Like.