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Judge Learned Hand, "I Am an American" Day speech, Central Park, NYC, May 21, 1944
"What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it: I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right: the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind a lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten."
Ironic thread is ironic.
This coming from a person who regularly tries to sow discord, incivility, and disharmony among his fellow posters. Ironic in another way, that the OP is a member of a party who revels in paralyzing the national will by playing the part of obstructionists in Congress.
Geez, what unmitigated gall you have by lecturing anyone on the merits of things you don't seem to abide by.
Ironic thread is ironic.
This coming from a person who regularly tries to sow discord, incivility, and disharmony among his fellow posters. Ironic in another way, that the OP is a member of a party who revels in paralyzing the national will by playing the part of obstructionists in Congress.
Geez, what unmitigated gall you have by lecturing anyone on the merits of things you don't seem to abide by.
Dante, don't lie. When you parade around with the liberals on this board, you are guilty by association. Pure and simple.
Dante, don't lie. When you parade around with the liberals on this board, you are guilty by association. Pure and simple.
Appalled by the actions of state legislatures during the Articles of Confederation period, the convention delegates had no intention of establishing a federal government with the power to impose economic equality through the violation of individual property rights.
On the contrary, James Madison, the brilliant “Father of the Constitution,” wrote in The Federalist No. 10 that in a free society, “factions”—what we would call interest groups—would naturally occur.
Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire. . . . But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.[7]
Madison believed that liberty creates the conditions for an unequal distribution of property:
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.[8]
Madison believed that liberty would produce economic inequality because of the “nature of man” and that “the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property,” yet the protection of liberty was the first order of government.[9] Madison and the other Framers were not utopians but realists who recognized the inherent conflict between liberty and economic equality—and they chose liberty. Their belief in equality was limited to a sociopolitical equality in which all citizens would stand equal in the eyes of the law, and the aristocratic privileges of birth that characterized Europe’s monarchies would be abolished. There would still be an aristocracy, but it would be a natural aristocracy based on individual talent and work ethic, not birth, and characterized by an equality of opportunity, not outcomes.
This nation is a House of Cards. I'd be concerned but the people are unworthy. Soon shall it fall, and it deserves to. Justice is not long denied.
I've built a tolerance through decades of exposure. And you?This nation is a House of Cards. I'd be concerned but the people are unworthy. Soon shall it fall, and it deserves to. Justice is not long denied.
do you bore yourself as often as you do others?
I've built a tolerance through decades of exposure. And you?This nation is a House of Cards. I'd be concerned but the people are unworthy. Soon shall it fall, and it deserves to. Justice is not long denied.
do you bore yourself as often as you do others?
Wonder what the zealots and fear brokers among us, who possess passionate certainties think: you know, those who are ignorant of the dangers of unquestioned, passionate conviction; those who revel in incivility, discord, and bitter disharmony; the ones who celebrate the paralysis of the national will?
Judge Learned Hand, "I Am an American" Day speech, Central Park, NYC, May 21, 1944
"What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it: I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right: the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind a lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten."
