Joseph Sobran Quotes - Page 2

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• There can be no such thing as "limited government," because there is no way to control an entity that in principle enjoys a monopoly of power.

  Joseph Sobran

  Government, Principles, Way

  20 Copy quote

• So when the wolf pounces on your lamb, just ignore the pitiful bleating and remind yourself that this is a democracy, where every sheep can freely express its preference for which kind of wolf it wants to be eaten by. Many sheep, perhaps understandably, prefer a wolf in sheep's clothing, which is after all the basic idea of democracy. So far it has worked pretty well. The wolves all agree on that, and they want to spread democracy everywhere.

  Joseph Sobran

  Sheep, Ideas, Democracy

  25 Copy quote

• Liberalism's fatal flaw,... is that it has no permanent norms, only a succession of enthusiasms espoused by minor prophets. Each of these seems like a hot new idea to liberals, but soon goes to irksome and destructive extremes.

  Joseph Sobran

  Ideas, Hot, Enthusiasm

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• Freedom is coming to mean little more than the right to ask permission.

  Joseph Sobran

  Mean, Littles, Permission

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• It's a real enigma why people are so averse to real free market capitalism even now. Here we are, in the century that has seen Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Castro, Pol Pot-and we're still being warned against the 'robber barons' of the 19th century. I don't know that Jay Gould or John D. Rockefeller ever killed anyone. The State has killed countless people, and yet we're always supposed to remain on guard against these 'greedy villains' of yesteryear.

  Joseph Sobran

  Real, People, John D Rockefeller

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• A belief in moral absolutes should always make us more, not less, critical of both sides in any conflict. This doesn't mean that both sides are equally wrong; it means that since we all fall short of moral perfection, even the side whose cause is truly righteous may commit terrible acts of violence in defense of that cause -- and, worse, may feel quite justified in committing them. That is the difference between being righteous and being self-righteous. Moral standards are absolute; but human fidelity to them is always relative.

  Joseph Sobran

  Fall, Mean, Self

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• The hypocrite recognizes the honest man as his deadly enemy.

  Joseph Sobran

  Hypocrite, Men, Enemy

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• How odd that Americans, and not just their presidents, have come to think of their Constitution as something separable from the government it's supposed to constitute. In theory, it should be as binding on rulers as the laws of physics are on engineers who design bridges; in practice, its axioms have become mere options. Of course engineers don't have to take oaths to respect the law of gravity; reality gives them no choice. Politics, as we see, makes all human laws optional for politicians.

  Joseph Sobran

  Thinking, Reality, Government

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• I call the present system 'Post-Constitutional America.' As I sometimes put it, the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.

  Joseph Sobran

  Government, Usa, America

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• When your child has matured sufficiently to understand how the judicial system works, set a bedtime for him and then send him to bed an hour early. When he tearfully accuses you of breaking the rules, explain that you made the rules and you can interpret them in any way that seems appropriate to you, according to changing conditions. This will prepare him for the Supreme Court's concept of the US Constitution as a 'living document'.

  Joseph Sobran

  Children, Way, Bed

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• War is just one more big government program.

  Joseph Sobran

  War, Government, Liberty

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• Freedom has ceased to be a birthright; it has come to mean whatever we are still permitted to do.

  Joseph Sobran

  Mean, Stills, Birthright

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• Chesterton spoke of 'the modern and morbid habit of always sacrificing the normal to the abnormal.' It would be hard to sum up liberalism for succinctly.

  Joseph Sobran

  Sacrifice, Would Be, Abnormal

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• It can be exalting to belong to a church that is five hundred years behind the times and sublimely indifferent to fashion; it is mortifying to belong to a church that is five minutes behind the times, huffing and puffing to catch up.

  Joseph Sobran

  Fashion, Years, Church

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• Legalizing abortion to get government out of the bedroom is like legalizing cannibalism to get government out of the kitchen.

  Joseph Sobran

  Government, Abortion, Kitchen

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• If Communism was liberalism in a hurry, liberalism is Communism in slow motion.

  Joseph Sobran

  Politics, Slow Motion, Communism

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• Politics is the conspiracy of the unproductive but organized against the productive but unorganized.

  Joseph Sobran

  Organization, Political, Politics

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• The measure of the state's success is that the word anarchy frightens people, while the word state does not.

  Joseph Sobran

  People, Doe, Anarchy

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• People who create things nowadays can expect to be prosecuted by highly moralistic people who are incapable of creating anything. There is no way to measure the chilling effect on innovation that results from the threats of taxation, regulation and prosecution against anything that succeeds. We'll never know how many ideas our government has aborted in the name protecting us.

  Joseph Sobran

  Ideas, Creating, Government

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• In a few more days we will celebrate Xmas, the day we commemorate the birth of you-know-who. ...It seems the modern consensus of enlightened people that his name should be used in polite society only when cursing.... [P]oliticians are often eager to associate themselves personally with you-know-who, even -- and especially -- when they rather flagrantly ignore his injunctions.... He was out of step then, and he is out of step now. He is eternally out of step, and eternally more powerful than those who keep in step. You know who I mean.

  Joseph Sobran

  Xmas, Powerful, Mean

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• Mass democracy guarantees stupidity. Masses of people, even if they're individually intelligent, can only act stupidly.

  Joseph Sobran

  Intelligent, People, Stupidity

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• Since outright slavery has been discredited, "democracy" is the only remaining rationale for state compulsion that most people will accept.

  Joseph Sobran

  People, Democracy, Liberty

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• Like psychoanalysis, constitutional jurisprudence has become a game without rules. By defying the plain meaning of words, ignoring context and history, and using a little ingenuity, you can make the Constitution mean anything you like.

  Joseph Sobran

  Mean, Games, Jurisprudence

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• Too many voters are already bought -- not by corporate campaign donors, but by the government itself.

  Joseph Sobran

  Government, Campaigns, Voters

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• ...[T]he Constitution conferred only a few specific powers on the federal government, all others being denied to it (as the Tenth Amendment would make plain). Unfortunately, only a tiny fraction of the U.S. population today - subtle logicians like you - can grasp such nuances. Too bad. The Constitution wasn't meant to be a brain-twister.

  Joseph Sobran

  Government, Brain, Population

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