A Quote by Gustav Radbruch

A constitutional state is like daily bread, like water to drink and air to breath, and the best thing about democracy is that it is the only system capable of securing the constitutional state.

Gustav Radbruch

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About Air Best Bread Breath Capable Constitutional Daily Daily Bread Democracy Drink Like Only State System Thing Water

Quote Author

Gustav Radbruch
German - Politician
November 21, 1878 - November 23, 1949

The founders understood that democracy would inevitably evolve into a system of legalized plunder unless the plundered were given numerous escape routes and constitutional protections such as the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, election of senators by state legislators, the electoral college, no income taxation, most governmental functions performed at the state and local levels, and myriad other constitutional limitations on the powers of the central government.

Thomas DiLorenzo

there ought always to be a constitutional method of giving efficacy to constitutional provisions. What for instance would avail restrictions on the authority of the state legislatures, without some constitutional mode of enforcing the observance of them? . . . This power must either be a direct negative on the state laws, or an authority in the federal courts, to over-rule such as might be in manifest contravention of the articles of union.

James Madison

Nation states are not a solution for democratic governance. This is same for Kurdish people. To see it as a solution is same as trying to drink water while drowning. The real necessity is oxygen not water. The solution is to get out of water and take a deep breath, decrease nation state and increase social democracy. Therefore our requests of a state are no further than a social and deeply rooted democracy.

Selahattin Demirtas

The state has a right to do that [outlaw contraceptives], I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have. That is the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court, they are creating right, and they should be left up to the people to decide.

Rick Santorum

A constitutional tradition that works is one that is in a constant state of dynamic evolution. You have a written constitution that says 'x,' but no constitutional system works if it just follows what's in that written constitution and never changes. Interpretation gives it the freedom to change.

Noah Feldman

In most constitutional states the citizens rule and are ruled by turns, for the idea of a constitutional state implies that the natures of the citizens are equal, and do not differ at all.

Aristotle

The honest and serious student of American history will recall that our Founding Fathers managed to write both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution without using the term 'democracy' even once. No part of any of the existing state Constitutions contains any reference to the word. [The men] who were most influential in the institution and formulation of our government refer to 'democracy' only to distinguish it sharply from the republican form of our American Constitutional system.

Clarence Manion

The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional.

Hugo Black

From a constitutional point of view there is an advantage to democracy and it must be balanced and the Supreme Court should be given another constitutional tool that will also give power to Judaism.

Ayelet Shaked

Even if the Constitution of the United States had intended to recognize slavery, as a constitutional state institution, such intended recognition would have failed of effect, and been legally void, because slavery then had no constitutional existence to be recognized.

Lysander Spooner

If you look at the minutes of the constitutional convention - which we have - Madison who was the main framer, proceeded to develop a system in which - as he put it - power would be in the hands of the wealth of the nation, the more responsible set of men and who recognize the need to protect the rights of property owners. That's why in the constitutional system, the most powerful part of the whole system is the senate.

Noam Chomsky

What about your constitutional right to bear arms, you say. I would simply point out that you don’t have to exercise a constitutional right just because you have it. You have the constitutional right to run for president of the United States, but most people have too much sense to insist on exercising it.

Chelsea Handler

There is a vast difference - a constitutional difference-between restrictions imposed by the state which prohibit the intellectual commingling of students, and the refusal of individuals to commingle where the state presents no such bar.

Frederick M. Vinson

In a democracy, every ordinary citizen is effectively a king--but a king in a constitutional democracy, a monarch who decides only formally, whose function is merely to sign off on measures proposed by an executive administration. This is why the problem with democratic rituals is homologous to the great problem of constitutional monarchy: how to protect the dignity of the king? How to maintain the appearance that the king effectively makes decisions, when we all know this not to be true?

Slavoj Žižek

The calculated killing of a human being by the state involves, by its very nature, an absolute denial of the executed person's humanity. The most vile murder does not, in my view, release the state from constitutional restraint on the destruction of human dignity.