Quotes of the day

Courtesy of the Patriot Post.

THE FOUNDATION
"Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors." —Joseph Story

INSIGHT
"That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise." —John Stuart Mill

CULTURE
"So much of the language in the Constitution has been exaggerated from its initial meaning, or else reinterpreted with ideology in mind, that there is public mystification about what it is that is truly guaranteed, or truly prohibited. The question of interpretation came up early in after the FBI searched the office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., finding evidence that the gentleman had been accepting and paying bribes and falsifying his tax returns... The issue was almost immediately raised that the FBI agents were exercising themselves outside their constitutional competence. This vague point has affected the thinking of those who are attracted to theoretical extrapolations on the Bill of Rights, taking its provisions to lengths that would surely have surprised the Founders. If the Constitution's rule separating church and state can be held to mean that a replica of the scene at Bethlehem cannot be constitutionally displayed on state property, then maybe Mr. Jefferson is indeed protected, giving credibility to the new Hastert-Pelosi exegesis of the Constitution. But stare down hard at the language. The Constitution holds that lawmakers are 'privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same.'... This has nothing to do with Mr. Jefferson's case. Which means that those who say that the FBI should not have had access to the congressman's home or office are extending that constitutional provision to the point of immunity from search... What the defense will plead in the case of Rep. Jefferson we cannot know for certain. But to plead the procedural point—that the FBI had no business in his freezer—is cartoon constitutional reductionism." —William F. Buckley

LIBERTY
"[T]he threat to liberty in the 21st century is the same as it has been throughout mankind's history. That threat is use of the coercive powers of government, under the color of law, to take the rightful property of some people and give to others, and the forcible imposition of the will of one group of people on another group. Such acts, most often done in the name of good, explain the ugliest portions of human history. The question is whether America will degenerate into what has been mankind's standard fare throughout history. We have yet to see the kind of arbitrary control, abuse and violation of basic human rights seen elsewhere. But if we ask ourselves which way are we heading, tiny steps at a time: toward more personal liberty or toward greater government control over our lives, the answer would unambiguously be the latter. We Americans face an awesome challenge and responsibility because if liberty dies here, it's probably dead for all places and all times." —Walter Williams

THE GIPPER
"Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed. It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government. Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work—work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it." —Ronald Reagan

OPINION IN BRIEF
"Without baby boomers, there is no global warming. Not because boomers are uniquely gaseous, but because they are uniquely egotistical. The notion that, as Al Gore put it on my radio station last week, humans are 'baking the planet to death' can only be swallowed whole by those whose appetite for self-importance has reached global proportions. For boomers like Al Gore, nothing ever happened in the world until it happened to them. The first president ever assassinated was JFK; no war had ever been protested or opposed before Vietnam; government corruption was invented by Nixon and Bill Clinton proved the boomers could all still get laid." —Michael Graham

GOVERNMENT
"Partisanship is fine when it's an expression of the high animal spirits produced by real political contention based on true political belief. But the current partisanship seems sour, not joyous. The partisanship has gotten deeper as less separates the governing parties in Washington. It is like what has been said of academic infighting: that it's so vicious because the stakes are so low. The problem is not that the two parties are polarized. In many ways they're closer than ever. The problem is that the parties in Washington, and the people on the ground in America, are polarized. There is an increasing and profound distance between the rulers of both parties and the people—between the elites and the grunts, between those in power and those who put them there." —Peggy Noonan

RE: THE LEFT
"The Marine incident, and its aftermath, at Haditha tells us much more about the media than it does about the Marines. And what it tells us ought to outrage us to the core. On every radio and television show I appeared on last week (and all I observed) in which this topic came up, without exception at least one of the media people immediately attempted to implicate not just the still-presumed-innocent Marines, but the American military's leadership and methods in general... The [media] has already started to report this story in a manner that is likely to do vast damage that may last for several years to the morale (and possibly recruitment) of our military. It will create a propaganda catastrophe of strategic proportions in our mortal struggle with radical Islam and its terrorist spear point. And all this is being done by journalists who are seemingly oblivious to the consequences of their acts... To see the gleam in the eyes of reporters happily cackling on about 'other possible incidents' —about which they know not whether they even exist—is to be filled with a fury that we have a system of journalism that permits people with such mentalities to poison the minds of the world with their malice... [I]n the lunatic asylum that is today's America-at-war journalism, one possibly unfortunate event opens a floodgate of over-reporting, misreporting and just plain lying. Nothing is too harsh or too untrue to say about our military by these (fill in the blank)... [T]he journalists today are too swept up in their own danse macabre to even notice the murderous consequences of their own malfeasance—or to hear the demands of simple decency." —Tony Blankley

POLITICAL FUTURES
"Reaganite conservatives have been the mainstay of the GOP for more than 20 years, and many of them are disgusted with the abandonment of Reaganite principles at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. If they had wanted skyrocketing budgets, new federal bureaucracies, more regulation of political speech, and stalemates on immigration, energy, and Social Security, they say, they would have voted for Democrats. Instead they voted for Republicans—and what did they get? Skyrocketing budgets, new federal bureaucracies, more regulation of political speech, and stalemates on immigration, energy, and Social Security. Though the conservatives' exasperation isn't new, it was muted after Sept. 11 to preserve a common front in the war on terrorism. But now the pot is boiling over. Conservatives are shifting into Howard Beale mode: They're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Many may simply sit out the election this November, even if that means letting Democrats take over Congress." —Jeff Jacoby

FOR THE RECORD
"Actually, My Lai was not evidence of the moral bankruptcy of the Vietnam War. It was exactly what America-haters here and abroad claimed it was not—an aberration. It is endlessly frustrating to see those who were so wrong about the Cold War, starting with Vietnam, invoke the memory of that conflict to stand for the opposite of what it should. The principal 'lesson' of Vietnam that our enemies learned was that America could be driven from the battlefield by psychological warfare aimed at the home front. They always flee, teaches Osama bin Laden. The lessons our liberal professors and editorialists learned was that the war was immoral. And no amount of experience—a million boat people, genocide in neighboring Cambodia, the collapse of Communism nearly everywhere—has been sufficient to alter their view." —Mona Charen

THE LAST WORD
"You're an enlightened world citizen. Your T-shirt says '9/11 was an inside job.' You're pretty sure we're living in a fascist state, that President Bush taps the Dixie Chicks' phones, Christian abortion clinic bombers outnumber jihadis, and the war on 'terror' is a distraction from the real threats: carbon emissions and Pat Robertson. Then you learn that 17 people were arrested in a terrorist bomb plot. How do you process the information?... Wait a minute: The 'terrorists' were Canadian? You can understand someone blowing up trains in Spain and London. They sent troops to an illegal war cooked up by neocons who want to kill brown people for Exxon and Jesus, or something. You can understand, reluctantly, blowing up teens in an Israeli pizza parlor, because the Jews took the West Bank from the sovereign, ancient nation of Palestine. But Canada? Isn't Michael Moore from Canada? You can get medical marijuana from married gay doctors in Canada, and no one has guns. You console yourself: Maybe they were really planning to attack the U.S. You realize the suspects were all Muslim, and you dread the inevitable pogroms. Haven't been any yet, but any day now. You read that a mosque was vandalized in Toronto after the arrest, and you feel a certain grim relief. Finally, racism!... You find yourself almost wishing there was another real attack, so people could see the logical consequences of 'fighting back' after 9/11. Yes, it would be bad, but sometimes you have to break an egg to show people the health impact of omelettes. Is it wrong to wish the Canadian terrorists might have succeeded? Shouldn't you know the answer to that question?" —James Lileks