There is nothing in the Constitution that professes or attempts to bind the posterity of those who established it. The question arises whether their posterity have bound themselves. —Lysander Spooner
Tag: Constitution
Most modern democracies are to some extent dual states. There is the government described in high school civics books, with carefully checked and circumscribed powers — but lurking in the background, there is a far more formidable bureaucratic apparatus, which actually wields the power of the state and cares little for constitutional niceties. —Scott Horton
Cancer patients often die waiting for new drugs to be approved by the FDA? Abigail Burroughs had squamous cell carcinoma, diagnosed when she was only 19 years old. She tried unsuccessfully to get FDA permission to try a new drug (Erbitux) that had shown success against her type of cancer. The FDA refused, and Abigail died at age 21. Abigail’s father formed the Abigail Alliance and sued the FDA. However, the courts ruled that Americans do not have the constitutional right to save their lives with drugs not approved by the FDA. —Mary Ruwart
If any man’s money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can, and will, hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists. —Lysander Spooner
All the perplexities, confusions, and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation. —John Adams
The two major political parties are so filled to the brim with anti-constitution and ant-liberty sociopaths, that I don’t believe there is such a thing as a ‘lesser of two evils.’ They’re both thoroughly evil. —Michael Boldin (Tenth Amendment Center)
If the federal government has the exclusive right to judge the extent of its own powers, warned the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions’ authors (James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, respectively), it will continue to grow – regardless of elections, the separation of powers, and other much-touted limits on government power. —Tom Woods
I believe that people have a right to decide their own destinies; people own themselves. I also believe that, in a democracy, government exists because (and only so long as) individual citizens give it a ‘temporary license to exist’ — in exchange for a promise that it will behave itself. In a democracy, you own the government, it doesn’t own you. —Frank Zappa
