--
Starred by:
GatorDJ
chigatorbri
MichiGator
FLVOL
chemosabe
MIAUTIGER
iPhoneHobbes
GatorJamie
--
"The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to — for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well — is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen."
|
Wayne
Doubletree Resident
(138.26.199.131) on 4/11/2018 - 12:54 p.m. says: ( 397 views
, 8 likes
)
Ole Ben does a decent job . . . Wayne 4/11/2018 - 12:30 p.m.
"The senators have no clue how social media works, but Zuck does. Hobbes 4/11/2018 - 12:42 p.m.
