Quotes About Rights

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

No system of mass surveillance has existed in any society that we know of to this point that has not been abused.

In a democracy, you need to have a strong judicial system. You need freedom of speech, you need art, and you need a free press.

The crowning feature of the federal system is the supremacy of the judiciary over all other branches of government in matters relating to the rights of persons and property.

There is nothing more foreign to a civilised and democratic system than preventive detention.

Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being.

God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.

He who does not have the courage to speak up for his rights cannot earn the respect of others.

There is a growing sentiment in America today that animals, too, have rights and that we collectively should afford them, at the very least, more respect and consideration as the sentient, autonomous beings they clearly are. Of course, this flies in the face of Western civilization's stated assumption of man's dominion over the beasts. The way we resolve this conflict in our culture, or fail to, has much to do with who we are, who we will become, and the legacy we leave for generations to come.

This is my mind. Only I have the right to be here.

Even a first-year law student knows that you can't curtail the right of one person to speak because other people get disorderly.

Under the claim of "religious freedom"—the cover for a gigantic new fictional creature called "corporate conscience"—the rights of workers could be given short shrift once again. [More on this in chapter 8.]

Liberty does not mean being given state sanction to force your own ideas—religious or otherwise—on other people. It does not mean being given a free pass from laws you don't like.

I think the police and the FBI are quite capable of sacrificing the rights of a private citizen to what they consider the public interest.

habeas corpus ad subjiciendum.

Freedom is too precious collateral for any fee. We

Oh, come on, Joanna. It's the nineteen seventies. Women have abortions all the time. It's no big thing anymore." "It is for the baby," I said. "And it would be for me. My father would never

Despite the smooth illusions perpetrated by mass culture in the United States, sexual gratification is not a sacred right, and celibacy is not a fate worse than death.

In our system, rights are almost always procedural (for example, to a fair process) rather than substantive (for example, to food, housing, or education).

The pillars of classical liberalism call for flat taxes, with revenues put to limited uses; strong property rights; and free markets.

America beats on you so hard the whole time. You are constantly being pummeled by other people's rights and their sense of patriotism.

Our principal claim here is that patients and doctors should be free to make their own agreements about that right. If patients want to waive the right to sue, they should be allowed to do exactly that. This increase in freedom is likely to help doctors and patients alike, and to make a valuable, even if modest, contribution to the health care problem.

To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.