The Art of Tetman Callis

“This Republic means something. It means something to me. I’ve buried a lot of soldiers, and my dad and mom fought in World War II, relatives that fought in a lot different wars. And this country means something, and Constitution means something. And it’s bigger than us, bigger than any one of us, and we’ve […]

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“In time of war men must choose one side or the other.” – Christopher Hill, The English Revolution 1640 Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“It’s not the election that creates a democracy; it’s that peaceful transition of power.” – Lt. Gen. Walter A. Piatt, USA, November 3, 2021 Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Using words to lie destroys language. Using words to cover up lies, however subtly, destroys language. Validating incomprehensible drivel with polite reaction also destroys language. This isn’t merely a question of the prestige of the writing art or the credibility of the journalistic trade: it is about the basic survival of the public sphere.” – […]

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“It is important not to equate literature with political protest, otherwise there is a risk of falling into inaction. Yes, the word is already a deed, but it may not be enough. Protest mobilizes people, protest has a very applied and clear pragmatic function, while literature does not have to do all that. Also, literature […]

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“Totalitarian regimes are hard to resist because their control of society is so all-encompassing. But by trying to influence behaviour that more liberal states ignore, or leave in the domain of private life, they politicize what had previously been unpolitical and private, and thereby increase the surface of possible opposition. If, say, listening to jazz […]

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“If we cannot help but blame others for things that are beyond their control, this may be because wretchedness is our basic condition, as inevitable as it is blameworthy, and only an ideology—such as the one that has reigned throughout modernity—that stresses our earthly perfectibility will place the wretched in the earthly purgatories of rehab […]

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“From the earliest times when man chose to guide his relations with fellow men by allegiance to the rule of law rather than force, he has been faced with the problem how best to deal with the individual in society who through moral conviction concluded that a law with which he was confronted was unjust […]

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“We recognize, as appellants urge, the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by the judge and contrary to the evidence. This is a power that must exist as long as we adhere to the general verdict in criminal cases, for the courts cannot […]

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“An aspect of the deadlock in British and American politics today is the way in which the hinterland of the left’s assumptions remains determinatively Protestant. Indeed its subjectivism, emotionalism, restrictive puritanism, iconoclasm, and opposition to high culture owe more in the end to the Reformation than they do to the Enlightenment. These attitudes are all […]

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“There is a great temptation on the part of the guerrilla leader to try to take over politically and then to bargain with his outside supporters for political power. This situation may become downright embarrassing to those trying to conclude a treaty that will ensure a lasting peace.” – Commander Eugene Franklin Clark, USN, The […]

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“Originalism is the only approach to text that is compatible with democracy. When government-adopted texts are given a new meaning, the law is changed; and changing written law, like adopting written law in the first place, is the function of the first two branches of government—elected legislators and (in the case of authorized prescriptions by […]

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“Every word employed in the constitution is to be expounded in its plain, obvious, and common sense, unless the context furnishes some ground to control, qualify, or enlarge it. Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of […]

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“The ordinary-meaning rule is the most fundamental semantic rule of interpretation. It governs constitutions, statutes, rules, and private instruments. Interpreters should not be required to divine arcane nuances or to discover hidden meanings.” – Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Law, without equity, though hard and disagreeable, is much more desirable for the public good, than equity without law: which would make every judge a legislator, and introduce most infinite confusion.” – William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Judges should not be allergic to acknowledging that any one of our legal conclusions might be wrong. Judges are just humans in robes. We try to have as high a batting average as possible, but no one can get it right all of the time. All a judge can do is try his or her […]

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“But if there be no great philosophic idea, if, for the time being, mankind, instead of going through a period of growth, is going through a corresponding process of decay and decomposition from some old, fulfilled, obsolete idea, then what is the good of educating? Decay and decomposition will take their own way. It is […]

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“The beginning of political decency and rationality is to recognize others’ similarity in important respects to oneself; that is, to identify imaginatively. Which is what one does when reading fiction. Literature is, in this sense, practice for civic life.” – George Scialabba, “The Sealed Envelope” Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“If you can’t afford a movie, go to the zoo. If you can’t afford the zoo, go see a politician.” – Stephen King, The Stand Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“A sane and normal society is one in which people habitually disagree, because general agreement is relatively rare outside the sphere of instinctive human qualities.” – Carl G. Jung, “Approaching the unconsciousness” Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was […]

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“Put not your trust in the princes of this world, for they will frig thee up and so shalt their governments, even unto the end of the earth.” – Stephen King, The Stand Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“As one passes through the levels of incarceration—from the minimum to the moderate to the maximum security institutions, and then to the solitary confinement section of these institutions—one does not pass deeper and deeper into a subpopulation of the most ruthlessly calculating criminals. Instead, ironically and tragically, one comes full circle back to those who […]

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“In the United States we have what is often called an adversarial system of justice. However, because it is adversarial—as distinct from inquisitorial—it is sometimes easy to forget that the purpose of the system is not to hold a contest for its own sake. The purpose of our system of justice is the orderly ascertainment […]

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“As a matter of case law, as well as common sense, the question of whether one parent has actually murdered the other is about as relevant as it is possible to imagine in any case involving whether the surviving parent should be allowed any form of child custody.” – Presiding Judge Sills, Guardianship of Simpson, […]

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“Congress may impose penalties in aid of the exercise of any of its enumerated powers. The power of taxation, granted to Congress by the Constitution, may be utilized as a sanction for the exercise of another power which is granted it.” – Associate Justice William O. Douglas, Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U.S. […]

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“The city holds all property which it owns as trustee for the public, although certain classes or kinds of property, such as the public streets, the public squares, the courthouse, and the jail cannot be taken on execution against it, for reasons which are plain to be seen. Such property is so necessary for the […]

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“At last we camped, and when the camels were unloaded and driven out to pasture, I lay down under the rocks and rested. My body was very sore with headache and high fever, the accompaniments of a sharp attack of dysentery which had troubled me along the march and had laid me out twice that […]

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“It is blood that makes the cash grow green.” – Justin King, “Let’s talk about new defense spending on Ukraine” Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Men have looked upon the desert as barren land, the free holding of whoever chose; but in fact each hill and valley in it had a man who was its acknowledged owner and would quickly assert the right of his family or clan to it, against aggression. Even the wells and trees had their masters, […]

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