Quotes About Citizens

Chicago's privatization mania began during Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration, which ran from 1989 to 2011. Under his successor, Rahm Emanuel, the trend has continued apace. For Rahm's investment banker buddies, the trend has been a boon. For citizens? Not so much.

I think that citizens should be skeptical of government power. But I fear it's bled over to cynicism. It is something that is getting in the way of reasoned discussion, and I'm very concerned about how to change that trend of cynicism.

The trial by jury is a trial by 'the country,' in contradistinction to a trial by the government. The jurors are drawn by lot from the mass of the people, for the very purpose of having all classes of minds and feelings, that prevail among the people at large, represented in the jury.

The Human Rights Act is not a terrorists' charter. It enables ordinary citizens to seek redress when the government breaches fundamental freedoms enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights such as the right to a fair trial, the right to life and free expression.

We were the first state in America to open our doors to publicly supported higher education. We had the foresight to create the Research Triangle Park. And through the efforts and sacrifices of all our citizens, we have built a state where anyone would be glad to raise a family.

A country cannot change, be transformed or developed as long as there is no truth and honesty as an everyday principle among the citizens of the nation.

What comes to pass does so not so much because a few people want it to happen, as because the mass of citizens abdicate their responsibility and let things be.

Doubts raced through my mind as I considered the feasibility of enforcing a law which the majority of honest citizens didn't seem to want.

One of my responsibilities is to make sure that justice is done for our citizens . . . . I want this case to be completed. Until that happens, it will continue to burden our relationship.

Millions of citizens are deeply disturbed that the military-industrial complex too often shapes national policy, but they do not want to be considered unpatriotic.

From my standpoint, I want to work with homeland security, justice to make sure that U.S. citizens' vote is not diluted.

The legitimate object of government," he later asserted, "is 'to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.

A government that loses, or forfeits, the consent of the governed is doomed. Invariably. Inevitably. Irreversibly

The federal system no longer represents the will of the American people.

The Supreme Court has ruled that government may not forbid law-abiding citizens to keep a handgun in their home for self-protection. But as this is written, most lower courts have found a way to uphold almost every other form of gun control, including laws that strip you of your constitutional right the moment you set foot off your private property.

The paradigm that government should have a monopoly of small arms implies the surreal normative postulate that citizens—or, rather, subjects—should be treated as the Jews were in Nazi Germany.

Webster defined "people" as "persons in general."4 Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) was adopted as the standard by Congress and the American people and became the accepted norm even in England.5 Webster there defined "the people" as "the commonalty, as distinct from men of rank.

A tyrannical government supported by a standing army had sought to disarm a people through various artifices. It took these repressive measures against both citizens organized as militia and against citizens as individuals. The patriots then exercised their right to keep and bear arms to protect both this right and their many other rights.

A general militia composed of all citizens capable of bearing arms was seen as superior to a select militia consisting of a selective group, which bordered on a standing army, the bane of liberty.

When in 1774 the rulers of Boston dared even to consider disarming the inhabitants, thousands of armed citizens felt justified in assembling and marching into town to demonstrate their opposition. The Founders considered a ban on importation of firearms and ammunition to violate the right to obtain and possess arms.

It would be rather curious if "the people" means only such persons as the government selects. To suggest that "the right of the people" means only a command issued by a government to persons appointed by the government demeans the very nature of a bill of rights.

Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.

Unlike other peoples, the Americans were armed, and the resistance of the state governments would bar a federal tyranny. By contrast, the European monarchies were "afraid to trust the people with arms." In short, the keeping and bearing of arms by the citizens would preserve the republic and protect liberty. The authors of The Federalist Papers contended that an armed populace and state resistance, not paper guarantees, would prevent federal usurpation based on military force.

Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations.