To say that a farm boy knows how to milk a cow is to say that we can send him out to the barn with an empty pail and expect him to return with milk. To say that a criminologist understands crime is not to say that we can send him out with a grant or a law and expect him to return with a lower crime rate. He is more likely to return with a report on why he has not succeeded yet, and including the inevitable need for more money, a larger staff, more sweeping powers, etc.
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There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and read more
There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience: they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power- God, history, fate, nation or humanity.
The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.
The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.
Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast read more
Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.
Systems are to be appreciated by their general effects, and not by particular exceptions.
Systems are to be appreciated by their general effects, and not by particular exceptions.
These people have served a longer sentence than some people who have committed murder.
These people have served a longer sentence than some people who have committed murder.
I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government.
I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government.
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the read more
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, read more
The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
