In Washington, task forces work like Tylenol: they reduce the symptoms of scandal while leaving the substance untouched.
Jonathan TurleyRead
People don't seem to understand that the separation of powers is not about the power of these branches; it's there to protect individual liberty - it's there to protect us from the concentration of power.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The separation of powers is essential for safeguarding individual freedoms by preventing the accumulation of too much authority in one branch.
This quote emphasizes the crucial role of the separation of powers in a government system, underscoring that it is not merely a structural arrangement but a fundamental safeguard of individual liberties. By distributing authority among different branches, it aims to prevent any singular entity from wielding excessive control, thus protecting the rights and freedoms of the individuals within society.
Themes
Separation Of PowersLibertyIndividual RightsGovernmentAuthority
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about constitutional design at a civic education workshop.
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I believe we are going to have to prepare ourselves for the difficult and patient task of outgrowing rigid and intransigent nationalism, and work slowly towards a world federation of peaceful nations. How will this be possible? Don't ask me. I don't know. But unless we develop a moral, spiritual, and political wisdom that is proportionate to our technological skill, our skill may end us.
Thomas MertonRead
The teachings of Christianity - from vicarious redemption to the love of enemies, no thought for the morrow need be taken, that no thrift or care or family or society or solidarity is necessary - these are immoral teachings that have done and continue to inflict untold moral and physical harm on our species. And until we outgrow this nonsense, we have no chance of emancipating ourselves.
Christopher HitchensRead
If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned.
George SutherlandRead
When we are young we do not look into mirrors. It is when we are old, concerned with our name, our legend, what our lives will mean to the future. We become vain with the names we own, our claims to have been the first eyes, the strongest army, the cleverest merchant. It is when he is old that Narcissus wants a graven image of himself.
Michael OndaatjeRead
Everything around me is evaporating. My whole life, my memories, my imagination and its contents, my personality - it's all evaporating. I continuously feel that I was someone else, that I felt something else, that I thought something else. What I'm attending here is a show with another set. And the show I'm attending is myself.
Fernando PessoaRead
Accordingly, France Had Voltaire, and his school of negative thinkers, and England (or rather Scotland) had the profoundest negative thinker on record, David Hume: a man, the peculiarities of whose mind qualified him to detect failure of proof, and want of logical consistency, at a depth which French skeptics, with their comparatively feeble powers of analysis and abstractions stop far short of, and which German subtlety alone could thoroughly appreciate, or hope to rival.
John Stuart MillRead