“The place to make new legislation, or address unwanted consequences of old legislation, lies in Congress. When it comes to statutory interpretation, our role is limited to applying the law’s demands as faithfully as we can in the cases that come before us. As judges we possess no special expertise or authority to declare for […]
Entries from October 2021
October 31st, 2021 · No Comments
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 30th, 2021 · No Comments
“It doesn’t cost a fortune to murder people, nor does it take much time. It’s concealing the crime that’s difficult, even if you’re smart and have a system.” – Rosaleen Bertolino, “The Monster’s Wife” Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 29th, 2021 · No Comments
“On my return from Holland, I had found Paris still in high fermentation as I had left it. Had the Archbishop, on the close of the assembly of Notables, immediately carried into operation the measures contemplated, it was believed they would all have been registered by the parliament, but he was slow, presented his edicts, […]
Tags: Economics · Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 28th, 2021 · No Comments
“Listen up: Find a nice girl from the neighborhood, treat her with respect, buy her flowers from time to time and you’ll be happy all your days.” – John Kass, Chicago Tribune, August 10, 2018 Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print
Tags: Verandah
October 27th, 2021 · No Comments
“I was a coward and a slave. I say this without the slightest embarrassment. Every decent man of our age must be a coward and a slave. That is his normal condition. Of that I am firmly persuaded. He is made and constructed to that very end. And not only at the present time owing […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 26th, 2021 · No Comments
“Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 25th, 2021 · No Comments
“Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact. There is no need to appeal to universal history to prove that; only […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 24th, 2021 · No Comments
“With the ant-heap the respectable race of ants began and with the ant-heap they will probably end, which does the greatest credit to their perseverance and good sense. But man is a frivolous and incongruous creature, and perhaps, like a chess player, loves the process of the game, not the end of it. And who […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 23rd, 2021 · No Comments
3.8: SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF A PROSECUTORThe duty of a public prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict. The prosecutor in a criminal case shall:(a) refrain from prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause;(b) make reasonable efforts to assure that the accused has been advised of the right […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 22nd, 2021 · No Comments
“What can be expected of man since he is a being endowed with strange qualities? Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 21st, 2021 · No Comments
“One may say anything about the history of the world–anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one can’t say is that it’s rational.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground (trans. unknown) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 20th, 2021 · No Comments
“Reason is an excellent thing, there’s no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man’s nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 19th, 2021 · No Comments
“I was just going to say that the devil only knows what choice depends on, and that perhaps that was a very good thing, but I remembered the teaching of science … and pulled myself up. And here you have begun upon it. Indeed, if there really is some day discovered a formula for all […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 18th, 2021 · No Comments
“Civilisation has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty. In old days he saw justice in bloodshed and with his conscience at peace exterminated those he thought proper. Now we do think bloodshed abominable and yet we engage in this abomination, and with more energy than ever. Which is […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 17th, 2021 · No Comments
“Oh, if I had done nothing simply from laziness! Heavens, how I should have respected myself, then. I should have respected myself because I should at least have been capable of being lazy; there would at least have been one quality, as it were, positive in me, in which I could have believed myself. Question: […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 16th, 2021 · No Comments
“Can a man of perception respect himself at all?” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Notes from the Underground” (trans. unknown) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 15th, 2021 · No Comments
“To each of my Nephews, William Augustine Washington, George Lewis, George Steptoe Washington, Bushrod Washington and Samuel Washington, I give one of the Swords or Cutteaux of which I may die possessed; and they are to chuse in the order they are named. These Swords are accompanied with an injunction not to unsheath them for […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 14th, 2021 · No Comments
“Upon the decease of my wife, it is my Will & desire that all the Slaves which I hold in my own right, shall receive their freedom. To emancipate them during her life, would, tho’ earnestly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties on account of their intermixture by Marriages with the Dower […]
Tags: Economics · Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 13th, 2021 · No Comments
“Permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 12th, 2021 · No Comments
“The habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 11th, 2021 · No Comments
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 10th, 2021 · No Comments
“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 9th, 2021 · No Comments
“Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 8th, 2021 · No Comments
“Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all her conclusions. A wall, you see, is a wall … and so on, and so on.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 7th, 2021 · No Comments
“I am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows.” – […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 6th, 2021 · No Comments
“that stern androckbound coast feltlike an amateurwhen it saw how grimthe puritans thatlanded on it were”— Don Marquis, “Certain Maxims of Archy” Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 5th, 2021 · No Comments
“Until within last year or two ago, I had no conception that Parties would, or even could go, the length I have been witness to; nor did I believe until lately, that it was within the bonds of probability; hardly within those of possibility, that, while I was using my utmost exertions to establish a […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 4th, 2021 · No Comments
“The difference of conduct between the friends, and foes of order, & good government, is in nothg. more striking than that, the latter are always working like bees, to distil their poison, while the former, depending, often times too much, and too long upon the sense, and good dispositions of the people to work conviction, […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
October 3rd, 2021 · No Comments
“It would be nice, if it were possible to arrest life. But it goes on. What does it mean, — life goes on? Life goes on, means, — the hair falls out and grows gray, the teeth decay, there appear wrinkles, and there is an odour in the mouth. Even before everything ends, everything becomes […]
Tags: Lit & Crit
October 2nd, 2021 · No Comments
“The country has got to have confidence in the government’s ability to stave off a crisis. . . . One of the jobs of a leader during a crisis is to not only project calm but to project confidence that we’ll deal with the situation.” – George W. Bush (interviewed in “Panic: The Untold Story […]