Michael Stewart

“We hardly know our own preferences in abstract matters; some of us are easily talked out of them, and end by following the fashion or taking up with the beliefs of the most impressive philosopher in our neighborhood, whoever he may be.”
― William James, Pragmatism

“Way back in 1918, Randolph Bourne famously wrote, “War is the health of the State.” In his unfinished letter to the American people, he expressed concern about the State’s sudden acquisition of greater power and undue control of individuals. It used to be that in times of peace, “the sense of the State almost fades out of the consciousness of men,” but unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Since 2020, we have had to engage with the State a hundred times a day, as we presented a government card to get into a restaurant, school, or airplane; when we went outside, when we failed to wear a face covering, when”
― Robert W. Malone, Lies My Gov't Told Me: And the Better Future Coming

“began with a dire prediction: someday, when Americans would be asked what had become “of the flower of their crop, and the rich produce of their farms,” they would answer as had the Man of La Mancha, “The Steward of my Lord has seized and sent it to Madrid,’ ” or more literally, tax collectors of the new national government had seized that produce and transmitted it to the “Federal City.”
― James MacGregor Burns, The Vineyard of Liberty, 1787–1863

“And our Republican Constitution left even the supremely important policy of exactly how to define, prosecute, and try such offenses as murder, rape, and robbery to the diversity of state legal systems.”
― Randy E. Barnett, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People – A Manifesto for Renewing Individual Rights and American Democracy