Michael Stewart

“Finally the job was done—a canal 363 miles long, 4 feet deep, 28 feet wide at the bottom and 40 at the top, with 83 locks lifting boats to a height of almost 600 feet, and costing over $7 million. Such a feat called for celebration, and the New Yorkers did not fail the occasion. On a morning late in October 1825 the canalboat Seneca Chief nosed into the canal at Buffalo carrying two kegs of the “pure water of Lake Erie,” Governor Clinton and other dignitaries, and a”
― James MacGregor Burns, The Vineyard of Liberty, 1787–1863

“One suspects that, at some level, progressives grasp the power of this dynamic, which is why they advocate for national legislation for every problem to defeat the individual liberty that federalism helps secure.”
― Randy E. Barnett, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People – A Manifesto for Renewing Individual Rights and American Democracy

“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