Rule of Law

"There is a Law that man should love his neighbor as himself. In a few hundred years it should be as natural to mankind as breathing or the upright gait; but if he does not learn it he must perish."
-- Alfred Adler

It is ironic that in a democracy where all are free and enjoy equal rights, we must also have laws -- equal responsibilities -- so that the rights and freedom of others are protected. However, in a democracy, laws must also be fair, clearly defined, and applied equally to all members of the society -- both citizens and rulers. -- Robert Alan Silverstein

Somehow people are starting to think of "entitlements' as 'extra unearned luxuries' that should be taken away during hard times. But the definition of an entitlement is a right that is granted by law or by nature, to which all are guaranteed access. True entitlements are basic needs not luxury items. When politicians insist on cutting 'entitlements' they need to ensure that only luxuries are on the cutting block not basic needs.

We have forgotten the basic SOCIAL CONTRACT of rights and responsibilities that binds us together as a society. Society expects citizens to follow laws it has instated in order to protect individuals and institutions. Without these laws there would be chaos -- the strong would simply take anything they wanted and the rest would have no recourse. In return the social contract guarantees that if people follow these rules or responsibilities they will be guaranteed basic rights - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A guarantee of life ensures they will have access to basic human needs of water, food and shelter needed to live and to support their family. Liberty involves the ability to engage in activities the individual wishes, as long as it does not violate the law. The pursuit of happiness is a guarantee that the laws are meant to be fair and provide an equal playing field for all members of society, so that through hard work and creative enterprise, all law-abiding citizens are free to strive to attain the wants and desires they believe will bring them happiness.
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

 

"As labor creates the wealth of the country, we demand the passage of such laws as may be necessary to protect it in all its rights." -- John Peter Altgeld

“Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community”
-- St. Thomas Aquinas quotes (1225-1274)

* Judicial bodies provide a forum for truth telling -– Louise Arbour

* I cannot accept that to be realistic means to tolerate misery, violence and hate. I do not believe that the hungry man should be treated as subversive for expressing his suffering. I shall never accept that the law can be used to justify tragedy, to keep things as they are, to make us abandon our ideas of a different world. Law is the path of liberty, and must as such open the way to progress for everyone. -- Oscar Arias Sanchez

* The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law. -- Aristotle (384-322 BC)

"It is quite clear that as long as the nations of the world spend most of their energy, money, and emotional strength in quarreling with words and weapons, a true offensive against the common problems that threaten human survival is not very likely. A world government that can channel human efforts in the direction of the great solutions seems desirable, even essential. Naturally, such a world government should be a federal one, with regional and local autonomy safeguarded and with cultural diversity promoted." -- Isaac Asimov

* The rule of law in place of force, always basic to my thinking, now takes on a new relevance in a world where, if war is to go, only law can replace it. -- Roger Nash Baldwin

"Always we must bear in mind that law has to be substituted for power, that care must be taken to serve the interests of law." -- Fredrik Bajer pacifists should stress more and more that it is the rule of law for which they are fighting. -- Fredrik Bajer

Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve... But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish that law without delay ... No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic.
-- Frederic Bastiat

At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

if globalization is to realise its potential as a force for good, we have to look more closely at the means by which we handle our growing interdependence. We do not have a world government, but we do have an increasingly complex network of institutions that are concerned with global governance. They are central to our future and international human rights law, -- Gro Brundtland

Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority.
-- Albert Camus

* The law is not the private property of lawyers, nor is justice the exclusive province of judges and juries. In the final analysis, true justice is not a matter of courts and law books, but of a commitment in each of us to liberty and mutual respect. -- Jimmy Carter

There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws. These are simply decisions made within institutions that are subject to human will and that must face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past. -- Noam Chomsky

"Unless some effective world supergovernment for the purpose of preventing war can be set up ... the prospects for peace and human progress are dark ....If .... it is found possible to build a world organization of irresistible force and inviolable authority for the purpose of securing peace, there are no limits to the blessings which all men enjoy and share."
--Winston Churchill

"Unless we establish some form of world government, it will not be possible for us to avert a World War III in the future."
--Winston Churchill

"We are in bondage to the law so that we might be free."
-- Cicero (106-43 BC)

In our hearts and in our laws, we must treat all our people with fairness and dignity, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. . . . ~ Bill Clinton

* "It is rather astonishing that the United States does not play ball with the ICC, considering our country was the beacon of the idea of an international criminal court." -- George Clooney

* We must be governed by the force of law, not by the law of force. -- William Sloane Coffin

It may be that for a long time some nations will continue to fight each other, but the example of those nations who prefer arbitration to war, law courts to the battlefield, must sooner or later influence the belligerent powers and make war as unpopular as pugilism is now. -- William Randal Cremer

* "Those advocates who work for world peace by urging a system of world government are called impractical dreamers. Those impractical dreamers are entitled to ask their critics what is so practical about war." -- Walter Cronkite

* Laws are important. But they can only be effective if the people know about the particular laws. -- Waris Dirie

* “While we diminish the stimulant of fear, we must increase to prisoners the incitements of hope, in proportion as we extinguish the terrors of the law, we should awaken and strengthen the control of the conscience.” -- Dorothea Dix

"It is obvious that no difficulty in the way of world government can match the danger of a world without it."
--Carl Van Doren

* "World federation is an ideal that will not die. More and more people are coming to realize that peace must be more than an interlude if we are to survive; that peace is a produce of law and order; that law is essential if the force of arms is not to rule the world." -- Justice William O. Douglas

 

There is no room for legal hair-splitting when it comes to the humane treatment of detainees - not in a nation founded on the rule of law and respect for human rights. Senator Dick Durbin "Universal evil rules our world when we have no universal laws to STOP countries and corporations from committing unlimited or unregulated violations against life." -- Kevin Edds

 

* "only world law can assure progress towards a civilized peaceful community." -- Albert Einstein "A world government with powers adequate to guarantee security is not a remote ideal for the distant future. It is an urgent necessity if our civilization is to survive." -- Albert Einstein

"There is no salvation for civilization, or even the human race, other than the creation of a world government."
-- Albert Einstein

"With all my heart I believe that the world's present system of sovereign nations can only lead to barbarism, war and inhumanity, and that only world law can assure progress towards a civilized peaceful community."
-- Albert Einstein

* "The world no longer has a choice between force and law; if civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower There can be no peace without law. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"... we have been warned by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself ... There must be law, steadily invoked and respected by all nations, for without law, the world promises only such meager justice as the pity of the strong upon the weak."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

* Truth-telling to Congress and the public is not disloyal in America: it is an expression of the higher loyalty officials owe to the Constitution, the rule of law, and the sovereign public. It is a courageous, patriotic, and effective way to serve our country. The time to speak out is now. -- Daniel Ellsberg

* "I prefer law to war under all circumstances." -- Benjamin Ferencz, Nuremberg prosecutor

 

* That which is not just is not law. -- William Lloyd Garrison

* ...what the United States does, for good or for ill, continues to be watched by the international community, in particular by organizations concerned with the advancement of the rule of law and respect for human dignity. -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg

"There is an increasing awareness of the need for some form of global government." -- Mikhail Gorbachev

"I'm not against the corporations. They are our wealth. But they are getting too greedy. I don't want to do away with corporations. I want them to make our cars, however, not our laws." -- Doris Haddock (Granny D)

We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law.
-- Lee H. Hamilton

* "There is no contradiction between effective law enforcement and respect for civil and human rights." -- Dorothy Height

I am firmly convinced that in the world of today all nations will be forced to the conclusion that cooperation for law, justice, and peace is the only alternative to a constant race in armaments--including atomic armaments--and to other disruptive practices that will bring the nations participating in them on either side to a common ruin, the equivalent of universal suicide. -- Cordell Hull

And it is to these rights -- the right of law and order, the right of life, the right of liberty, the right of a job, the right of a home in a decent neighborhood, and the right to an education -- it is to these rights that I pledge my life and whatever capacity and ability I have. -- Hubert Humphrey

* There is so much each one of us can do to make a difference. We are at a dangerous juncture in the history of mankind. … We need to defend our principles and values, human rights, civil liberties and the rule of international law. If we don’t our world will further descend into a state of chaos. -- Bianca Jagger

* Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. -- Thomas Jefferson "It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately." -- Thomas Jefferson

I hope we shall take warning from the example of England and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our Government to trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Conservation is ethically sound. It is rooted in our love of the land, our respect for the rights of others, our devotion to the rule of law."
-- Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973)

* No one is above the law, and no one is beneath the law. -- Van Jones

* Our fathers gave us many laws, which they had learned from their fathers. These laws were good. They told us to treat all people as they treated us; that we should never be the first to break a bargain; that is was a disgrace to tell a lie; that we should speak only the truth; that it was a shame for one man to take another's wife or his property without paying for it. -- Chief Joseph

"If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace...Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it...Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade...where I choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty."
-- Chief Joseph

""Treat all men alike. Give them the same law. Give them an even chance to live and grow." -- Chief Joseph

* "We must create world-wide law and law enforcement as we outlaw world-wide war and weapons" -- John F. Kennedy

* Human security comes only with human rights and the rule of law. Human rights are the basis for creating strong and accountable states without which there can be no political stability or social progress. -- Irene Khan

* One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. -- Martin Luther King, Jr

“I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it."
-- Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize-winning economist)

 

* The legislation of the government has been directed rather to the protection of the rights of money and property than to the best good of the citizen. -- Susette LaFlesche

* “We want harmonious development, ... We should work together for more democratic and law-based international relations, and a harmonious environment in which countries respect one another, treat one another as equals, and different cultures can emulate and interchange with each other.” -- Li Zhaoxing

Drawing from the tragic lessons of nuclear atrocities experienced by the Indigenous Peoples we recognize that the testing, development and use of nuclear weapons is a crime against all humanitarian law… -- Hilda Lini

* “The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.” -- John Locke Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins. -- John Locke

* “If nations could only depend upon fair and impartial judgments in a world court of law, they would abandon the senseless, savage practice of war.” -- Belva Ann Lockwood “I know we can't abolish prejudice through laws, but we can set up guidelines for our actions by legislation.” -- Belva Ann Lockwood

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. -- James Madison

* I believe that he who has less in life should have more in law. -- Ramon Magsaysay

* "Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy." -- Thurgood Marshall

"Liberty is the right to do as the law permits."
-- Montesquieu French jurist (1689-1755)

"If heads of states fail to seize the opportunity of our entry into the third millennium to provide for a better government of planet Earth, history will not forgive them -- if there is a history." -- Robert Muller

"I have long believed that the only way peace can be achieved is through world government." -- Jawaharlal Nehru

However difficult it may be to bring it about, some form of world government, with agreed international law and means of enforcing the law, is inevitable.
-- John B. Orr

We are privileged to have the opportunity of contributing to the achievement of the goal of the abolition of war and its replacement by world law. I am confident that we shall succeed in this great task; that the world community will thereby be freed not only from the suffering caused by war but also through the better use of the earth's resources, of the discoveries of scientists, and of the efforts of mankind, from hunger, disease, illiteracy, and fear; and that we shall in the course of time be enabled to build a world characterized by economic, political, and social justice for all human beings and a culture worthy of man's intelligence. -- Linus Pauling

"Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property. Obedience is the premium which we pay for it." -- William Penn

* “Kids don’t have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don’t have a little sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the Northeast. Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops in this country; we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from enlightened management. They were fought for, they were bled for, they were died for by working people, by people like us. Kids ought to know that. That’s why I sing these songs. That’s why I tell these stories, dammit. No root, no fruit!” -- Utah Phillips

When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.
-- Pope John Paul II

The international community should support a system of laws to regularize international relations and maintain the peace in the same manner that law governs national order."
-- Pope John Paul II

* No man is above the law and no man below it.  -- Theodore Roosevelt

"If laws are unjust, they must be continually broken until they are altered." -- Josephine Ruffin

It's up to us, the people, to break immoral laws, and resist. -- Cindy Sheehan

* "As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end." -- Adlai Stevenson

* This question of whether violence or law shall prevail between states is the most vital of the problems of our eventful era, and the most serious in its repercussions. The beneficial result of a secure world peace are almost inconceivable, but even more inconceivable are the consequences of the threatening world war which many misguided people are prepared to precipitate. The advocates of pacifism are well aware how meager are their resources of personal influence and power. They know that they are still few in number and weak in authority, but when they realistically consider themselves and the ideal they serve, they see themselves as the servants of the greatest of all causes. -- Bertha von Suttner

* "The greatness of nations is shown by their strict regard for human rights, rigid enforcement of the law without bias, and just administration of the affairs of life.” ~ Mary Burnett Talbert

"World federalists hold before us the vision of a unified mankind living in peace under a just world order. The heart of their program - a world under law - is realistic and attainable." ~ U Thant

"A federation of all humanity, together with a sufficient measure of social justice, to ensure health, education, and a rough equality of opportunity to most of the children born into the world, would mean such a release and increase of human energy as to open a new phase in human history." -- H.G. Wells

* The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise see in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws. -- Walt Whitman

“I hope people will not think we are encouraging people to break the law. But our actions should teach people, and children, to scrutinize laws against human life, and they should be broken to prove a point.” -- Barbara Wiedner

 

LAW
HERO PIX

Roger Nash Baldwin | Dorothy Height | John F. Kenendy

Law Day - May 1