Law Abiding Citizen Quotes

Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.

There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for me to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt.

The one thing our nation needs desperately is law-abiding citizens, not just those who abide by human laws but those who abide by divine laws. Our

His fear may have been race-related. You’d have to ask him. To me, a law-abiding citizen is a law-abiding citizen, regardless of race. So yes, I believe the result would have been different had I been the officer. I don’t believe I’d have pulled this couple over in the first place.

Regardless of whether you are Elon Musk or Deripaska, you must be not only a successful businessman, but also a law-abiding citizen

When bad news is riding high and despair in fashion, when loud mouths and corruption seem to own center stage, when some keep crying that the country is going to the dogs, remember it’s always been going to the dogs in the eyes of some, and that 90 percent, or more, of the people are good people, generous-hearted, law-abiding, good citizens who get to work on time, do a good job, love their country, pay their taxes, care about their neighbors, care about their children’s education, and believe, rightly, as you do, in the ideals upon which our way of life is founded.

One legislator accused me of having a 19th-century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an 18th-century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law-abiding citizens should be one of the government’s primary concerns.

A siren pierced the air, cutting off her breath. “Damn.” A scowling Jessie pulled over to the side of the long, otherwise empty road. “I swear,” the blonde muttered, “the hick cops have nothing better to do than hassle law-abiding citizen.” “Jessie, we’re actually—” “Shh. Think law-abiding thoughts.

the presumption is that the government, with rare exception, will not know anything that law-abiding citizens are doing. That is why we are called private individuals, functioning in our private capacity. Transparency is for those who carry out public duties and exercise public power. Privacy is for everyone else.

Since most law-abiding citizens had no contact with the parole system, it was not a priority with the state legislatures. And since most of the state's prisoners were either poor or black, and unable to use the system to their advantage, it was easy to hit them with harsh sentences and keep them locked up. But for an inmate with a few connections and some cash, the parole system was a marvelous labyrinth of contradictory laws that allowed the Parole Board to pass out favors.

The law-abiding black citizen who is passed up by a taxi, refused pizza delivery, or stopped by the police can rightfully feel a sense of injustice and resentment. But the bulk of those feelings should be directed at those who have made race synonymous with higher rates of criminal activity rather than the taxi driver or pizza deliverer who is trying to earn a living and avoid being a crime victim.

It was a still night, tinted with the promise of dawn. A crescent moon was just setting. Ankh-Morpork, largest city in the lands around the Circle Sea, slept. That statement is not really true On the one hand, those parts of the city which normally concerned themselves with, for example, selling vegetables, shoeing horses, carving exquisite small jade ornaments, changing money and making tables, on the whole, slept. Unless they had insomnia. Or had got up in the night, as it might be, to go to the lavatory. On the other hand, many of the less law-abiding citizens were wide awake and, for instance, climbing through windows that didn’t belong to them, slitting throats, mugging one another, listening to loud music in smoky cellars and generally having a lot more fun. But most of the animals were asleep, except for the rats. And the bats, too, of course. As far as the insects were concerned… The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh some legislation was passed in a determined attempt to put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honesty into reporting. Thus, if a legend said of a notable hero that “all men spoke of his prowess” any bard who valued his life would add hastily “except for a couple of people in his home village who thought he was a liar, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard of him.” Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like “his mighty steed was as fleet as the wind on a fairly calm day, say about Force Three,” and any loose talk about a beloved having a face that launched a thousand ships would have to be backed by evidence that the object of desire did indeed look like a bottle of champagne.

Considering segregationist senator Strom Thurmond, Richard Nixon concluded, “Strom is no racist.” There are no racists in America, or at least none that the people who need to be white know personally. In the era of mass lynching, it was so difficult to find who, specifically, served as executioner that such deaths were often reported by the press as having happened “at the hands of persons unknown.” In 1957, the white residents of Levittown, Pennsylvania, argued for their right to keep their town segregated. “As moral, religious and law-abiding citizens.” the group wrote, “we feel that we are unprejudiced and undiscriminating in our wish to keep our community a closed community.” This was the attempt to commit a shameful act while escaping all sanction, and I raise it to show you that there was no golden era when evildoers did their business and loudly proclaimed it as such.

The law-abiding citizen by his labor serves both himself and his fellow man and thereby integrates himself peacefully into the social order. The robber, on the other hand, is intent, not on honest toil, but on the forcible appropriation of the fruits of others' labor.

The aim is to become a permanent resident and a law-abiding citizen in your heart.

There’s a huge difference between right and wrong. And it’s the job of decent, law-abiding citizens to point out that reality to those who have forgotten.

The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose.

Law-abiding citizens and people with good political connections stand their ground.

Perhaps in thousands of years, when we understand what is important in life and how not to behave, then we could change societies from law-abiding citizens to conscious and wise citizens.

My focus is on understanding why people commit violent and predatory acts, not to help them become better, more law-abiding citizens, but to aid in catching them, prosecuting them, and putting them away

Boy everyone in this country is running around yammering about their fucking rights. "I have a right, you have no right, we have a right." Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, shit like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional. But if you think you do have rights, let me ask you this, "where do they come from?" People say, "They come from God. They're God given rights." Awww fuck, here we go again...here we go again. The God excuse, the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument, "It came from God." Anything we can't describe must have come from God. Personally folks, I believe that if your rights came from God, he would've given you the right for some food every day, and he would've given you the right to a roof over your head. GOD would've been looking out for ya. You know that. He wouldn't have been worried making sure you have a gun so you can get drunk on Sunday night and kill your girlfriend's parents. But let's say it's true. Let's say that God gave us these rights. Why would he give us a certain number of rights? The Bill of Rights of this country has 10 stipulations. OK...10 rights. And apparently God was doing sloppy work that week, because we've had to ammend the bill of rights an additional 17 times. So God forgot a couple of things, like...SLAVERY. Just fuckin' slipped his mind. But let's say...let's say God gave us the original 10. He gave the british 13. The british Bill of Rights has 13 stipulations. The Germans have 29, the Belgians have 25, the Sweedish have only 6, and some people in the world have no rights at all. What kind of a fuckin' god damn god given deal is that!?...NO RIGHTS AT ALL!? Why would God give different people in different countries a different numbers of different rights? Boredom? Amusement? Bad arithmetic? Do we find out at long last after all this time that God is weak in math skills? Doesn't sound like divine planning to me. Sounds more like human planning . Sounds more like one group trying to control another group. In other words...business as usual in America. Now, if you think you do have rights, I have one last assignment for ya. Next time you're at the computer get on the Internet, go to Wikipedia. When you get to Wikipedia, in the search field for Wikipedia, i want to type in, "Japanese-Americans 1942" and you'll find out all about your precious fucking rights. Alright. You know about it. In 1942 there were 110,000 Japanese-American citizens, in good standing, law abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had was...right this way! Into the internment camps. Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most...their government took them away. and rights aren't rights if someone can take em away. They're priveledges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of TEMPORARY priviledges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list get's shorter, and shorter, and shorter. Yeup, sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize the government doesn't give a fuck about them. the government doesn't care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety. it simply doesn't give a fuck about you. It's interested in it's own power. That's the only thing...keeping it, and expanding wherever possible. Personally when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true: either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all.

Prisoners will remain silent!” he shrieked. Two men were clumping down the stairs and into the dining room carrying something between them. They had discovered the old radio beneath the stairs. “Law-abiding citizens, are you?” Kapteyn went on. “You! The old man there. I see you believe in the Bible.” He jerked his thumb at the well-worn book on its shelf. “Tell me, what does it say in there about obeying the government?” “‘Fear God,’” Father quoted,

Perhaps it was true a century ago—I deeply regret that it is no longer true—but the United States criminal justice system long ago lost any legitimate claim to the loyal cooperation of American citizens. You cannot write tens of thousands of criminal statutes, including many touching upon conduct that is neither immoral nor dangerous, write those laws as broadly as you can imagine, scatter them throughout the thousands of pages of the United States Code—and then expect decent law-abiding, unsuspecting citizens to cooperate with an investigation into whether they may have violated some law they have never even heard about. The next time some police officer or government agent asks you whether you would be willing to answer a few questions about where you have been and what you have been doing, you must respectfully but very firmly decline.

[T]here is both an intrinsic and instrumental value to privacy. Intrinsically, privacy is precious to the extent that it is a component of a liberty. Part of citizenship in a free society is the expectation that one's personal affairs and physical person are inviolable so long as one remains within the law. A robust concept of freedom includes the freedom from constant and intrusive government surveillance of one's life. From this perspective, Fourth Amendment violations are objectionable for the simple fact that the government is doing something it has no licence to do–that is, invading the privacy of a law-abiding citizen by monitoring her daily activities and laying hands on her person without any evidence of wrongdoing. Privacy is also instrumental in nature. This aspect of the right highlights the pernicious effects, rather than the inherent illegitimacy, of intrusive, suspicionless surveillance. For example, encroachments on individual privacy undermine democratic institutions by chilling free speech. When citizens–especially those espousing unpopular viewpoints–are aware that the intimate details of their personal lives are pervasively monitored by government, or even that they could be singled out for discriminatory treatment by government officials as a result of their First Amendment expressive activities, they are less likely to freely express their dissident views.

Leniency toward criminals contrasted starkly with severity toward the law-abiding citizen’s right to defend himself or herself.

Housing, employment, health, family—these are the factors that determine whether a person returning home from prison will succeed or fail as a law-abiding citizen.

One who has a deaden conscience can never live within the confinements of the law.

We were very aware that our civility demonstrated above all the absurdity of brutalizing peaceful, law-abiding citizens and detaining them from exercising their constitutional rights.

Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt.

I saw a fellow in a Don't Tread on Me T-shirt the other day. He was at LaGuardia and he was being trod all over, by the obergropinfuhrers of the TSA, who had decided to subject him to one of their enhanced pat-downs. There are few sights more dismal than that of a law-abiding citizen having his genitalia pawed by state commissars, but having them pawed while wearing a Don't Tread on Me T-shirt is certainly one of them.

Community Policing is a collaborative partnership between the police and law-abiding citizens designed to prevent crime, arrest offenders, solve neighborhood problems and improve the quality of life in the community.

Nine out of ten beer drinkers are decent and reputable citizens,” Roosevelt declared. “That large class of Americans who have adopted the German customs in regard to drinking ales and beers … are in the main … law-abiding.

You proclaim how proud you are to be ‘law-abiding citizens,’ and express utter contempt for anyone who considers himself above your so-called ‘laws,’ laws that are nothing more than the selfish whims of tyrants and thieves.

In the. Middle Ages and afterwards, Jews, like members of other marginalized groups, were denied the legal protections that England afforded the archetypal citizen: the free white native-born law-abiding Christian adult male.

Faith was certain they were breaking several telecommunications laws. Laws that in some states might well count as pornography and probably carried a mandatory prison sentence. Faith was a law abiding citizen. She prided herself on that. She didn’t litter, she didn’t cheat on her taxes and she gave up her seat for little old ladies and gentlemen on the bus. She’d never even jaywalked. And she lived in New York for Christ’s sake! But then his hand reached down and fondled his balls.

Most people are honest, loyal, law-abiding citizens who focus their energy on making a living, raising a family, and contributing to society. Others are more selfish, concerned only about themselves, and appear to lack a moral compass. These individuals display little regard for others, allowing their need for power and prestige to override their sense of fairness and equity.1 Unfortunately, some individuals in the business world allow the responsibilities of leadership and the perquisites of power to override their moral sense.

She blew a strand of hair from her face. “I don't normally invite a near-stranger into my apartment. I'm trying to work up my courage to do that.” He reached out a hand to cover hers. “I appreciate it. I can assure you that I am a law-abiding citizen. As a cop, I have to have a clean record.

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of lawbreakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.

My instinct for how to stick to the shadows, how to not present a profile, and how to move without making noise made me concerned about where I’d gotten these skills. That, and the fact that I kept wanting to rest my hand on a nonexistent gun. They didn’t seem the type of abilities that belonged to a law-abiding citizen who spent his days reviewing trees.

While higher arrest and conviction rates, longer prison sentences, and the death penalty all reduce murders generally, none of these measures had a consistent impact on mass public shootings. Nor did any of the restrictive gun laws. Only one single policy was found to effectively reduce these attacks: the passage of right-to-carry laws, which permit law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns.

The profits made from the widespread dependence on illicit drugs are enriching murderers and terrorists. It seems possible that in the near future we shall be ruled by an oligarchy of former drug dealers, who are rapidly gaining wealth and power at the expense of law-abiding citizens. And in our sexual lives, by shedding the shackles of “hypocritical” morality, we have unleashed destructive viruses upon one another.

I gave zero fucks about the law. Legality did not mean right, and illegality did not mean wrong. One only had to look at the fucked-up justice system to realize the law was nothing more than a house of cards, created to give its citizens a false sense of security and weakened by doorways open only to a select few. I had to keep up the appearance of a civil, law-abiding citizen, but as anyone knew, appearances can be deceiving. And sometimes, we had to take justice into our own hands

Some people get hit by a tidal wave, dig in their nails and hold on; they stay focused on the positive, keep visualizing the way through till it opens up in front of them. Some lose hold. Broke can lead people to places they would never have imagined. It can nudge a law-abiding citizen onto that blurred crumbling edge where a dozen kinds of crime feel like they’re only an arm’s reach away. It can scour away at a lifetime of mild, peaceful decency until all that’s left is teeth and claws and terror.

The presumption is that, with rare exception, will know everything their political officials are doing, which is why they are called public servants, working in the public sector, in public service, for public agencies. Conversely, the presumption is that the government, with rare exception, will not know anything that law-abiding citizens are doing. That is why we are called private individuals, functioning in our private capacity. Transparency is for those who carry out public duties and exercise public power. Privacy is for everyone else.

Civil asset forfeiture was originally intended as a way to cripple organized crime through the seizure of property used in a criminal enterprise. Regrettably, it has become a tool for unscrupulous law enforcement officials, acting without due process, to profit by destroying the livelihood of innocent individuals, many of whom never recover the lawful assets taken from them. When the rights of the innocent can be so easily violated, no one’s rights are safe. We call on Congress and state legislatures to enact reforms to protect law-abiding citizens against abusive asset forfeiture tactics.

When we choose to live in a society, we choose to live under a contract, and to abide by the rules that a contract dictates for us—the Constitution itself is a contract, albeit a malleable contract, and the question of just how malleable it is, exactly, is where law intersects with politics—and it is under the rules, explicit or otherwise, of this contract that we promise not to kill, and to pay our taxes, and not to steal. But in this case, we are both the creators of and bound by this contract: as citizens of this country, we have assumed, from birth, an obligation to respect and follow its terms, and we do so daily.

There are no racists in America, or at least none that the people who need to be white know personally. In the era of mass lynching, it was so difficult to find who, specifically, served as executioner that such deaths were often reported by the press as having happened “at the hands of persons unknown.” In 1957, the white residents of Levittown, Pennsylvania, argued for their right to keep their town segregated. “As moral, religious and law-abiding citizens.” the group wrote, “we feel that we are unprejudiced and undiscriminating in our wish to keep our community a closed community.” This was the attempt to commit a shameful act while escaping all sanction, and I raise it to show you that there was no golden era when evildoers did their business and loudly proclaimed it as such. “We would prefer to say that such people cannot exist, that there aren’t any,” writes Solzhenitsyn. “To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law.” This is the foundation of the Dream—its adherents must not just believe in it but believe that it is just, believe that their possession of the Dream is the natural result of grit, honor, and good works. There

What were Hank and Atticus up to? What was going on? She did not know, but before the sun went down she would find out. It had something to do with that pamphlet she found in the house—sitting there before God and everybody—something to do with citizens’ councils. She knew about them, all right. New York papers full of it. She wished she had paid more attention to them, but only one glance down a column of print was enough to tell her a familiar story: same people who were the Invisible Empire, who hated Catholics; ignorant, fear-ridden, red-faced, boorish, law-abiding, one hundred per cent red-blooded Anglo-Saxons, her fellow Americans—trash.

Everything that is wrong with the inner cities of America that policy can affect, Democrats are responsible for: every killing field; every school that year in and year out fails to teach its children the basic skills they need to get ahead; every school that fails to graduate 30 to 40 percent of its charges while those who do get degrees are often functionally illiterate; every welfare system that promotes dependency, condemning its recipients to lifetimes of destitution; every gun-control law that disarms law-abiding citizens in high-crime areas and leaves them defenseless against predators; every catch-and-release policy that puts violent criminals back on the streets; every regulation that ties the hands of police; every material and moral support provided to antipolice agitators like Black Lives Matter, who incite violence against the only protection inner-city families have; every onerous regulation and corporate tax that drives businesses and jobs out of inner-city neighborhoods; every rhetorical assault that tars Democrats’ opponents as “racists” and “race traitors,” perpetuating a one-party system that denies inner-city inhabitants the leverage and influence of a two-party system. Democrats are responsible for every one of the shackles on inner-city communities, and they have been for 50 to 100 years. What

If the community makes the function the measure of a man, if it respects in one of its citizens only memory, in another a tabulating intellect, in a third only mechanical skill; if, indifferent to character, it here lays stress upon knowledge alone, and there pardons the profoundest darkness of the intellect so long as it co-exists with a spirit of order and a law-abiding demeanour—if at the same time it requires these special aptitudes to be exercised with an intensity proportionate to the loss of extensity which it permits in the individuals concerned—can we then wonder that the remaining aptitudes of the mind become neglected in order to bestow every attention upon the only one which brings honour and profit?

What is your Christian life like? What is the shape of your gospel, your faith? In the end, it will all depend on what you think God is like. Who God is drives everything. So what is the human problem? Is it merely that we have strayed from a moral code? Or is it something worse: that we have strayed from him? What is salvation? Is it merely that we are brought back as law-abiding citizens? Or is it something better: that we are brought back as beloved children? What is the Christian life about? Mere behaviour? Or something deeper: enjoying God? And then there’s what our churches are like, our marriages, our relationships, our mission: all are moulded in the deepest way by what we think of God. In the early fourth century, Arius went for a pre-cooked God, ready-baked in his mind. Ignoring the way, the truth and life, he defined God without the Son, and the fallout was catastrophic: without the Son, God cannot truly be a Father; thus alone, he is not truly love. Thus he can have no fellowship to share with us, no Son to bring us close, no Spirit through whom we might know him. Arius was left with a very thin gruel: a life of self-dependent effort under the all-seeing eye of his distant and loveless God. The tragedy is that we all think like Arius every day. We think of God without the Son. We think of ‘God’, and not the Father of the Son. But from there it really doesn’t take long before you find that you are just a whole lot more interesting than this ‘God’. And could you but see yourself, you would notice that you are fast becoming like this ‘God’: all inward-looking and fruitless.

With most crimes, police generally do not arrest suspects without a warrant unless they personally witness it. Yet the mob justice surrounding domestic violence has brought the innovation of mandatory arrest, even when it is not clear who has committed the deed or even that any deed has been committed at all. One prosecutor in Hamilton County, Ohio, notes that this is “turning law-abiding citizens into criminals.” Judith Mueller of the Women’s Center in Vienna, Virginia, who had lobbied for the mandatory arrest law, says, “I am stunned, quite frankly, because that was not the intention of the law. It was to protect people from predictable violent assaults, where a history occurred, and the victim was unable for whatever reason to press charges. . . . It’s disheartening to think that it could be used punitively and frivolously.

Restraining orders” separating fathers and children (often for life) are routinely issued during divorce proceedings without any evidence of legal wrongdoing, often without notifying the father to be present to defend himself or without any hearing at all. These orders do not punish criminals for illegal acts they are proven to have committed but prohibit law-abiding citizens from otherwise legal acts—like being in their own homes or with their own children. With the stroke of a pen, judges can simply legislate new crimes around each individual, who will then be arrested for doing what no statute prohibits and what the rest of us may do without penalty. “Once the restraining order is in place, a vast range of ordinarily legal behavior”—most often contact with one’s own children—is “criminalized.” Because violent assault and other statutory crimes are already punishable, the only people punished are peaceful, law-abiding citizens.

Burns, a former Secret Service agent, had succeeded Pinkerton as the world’s most celebrated private eye. A short, stout man, with a luxuriant mustache and a shock of red hair, Burns had once aspired to be an actor, and he cultivated a mystique, in part by writing pulp detective stories about his cases. In one such book, he declared, “My name is William J. Burns, and my address is New York, London, Paris, Montreal, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and wherever else a law-abiding citizen may find need of men who know how to go quietly about throwing out of ambush a hidden assassin or drawing from cover criminals who prey upon those who walk straight.” Though dubbed a “front-page detective” for his incessant self-promotion, he had an impressive track record, including catching those responsible for the 1910 bombing of the headquarters of the Los Angeles Times, which killed twenty people. The New York Times called Burns “perhaps the only really great detective, the only detective of genius, whom this country has produced,” and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave him the moniker he longed for: “America’s Sherlock Holmes.

Not every gun owner is as sane or self-possessed as the plumber from Sutherland Springs, after all, and if, as the NRA argues, law-abiding Americans should be and must be armed to protect themselves against the lawbreakers who threaten our safety, vast numbers of fearful, often irrational people will be empowered to make split-second decisions that will inevitably lead to more killings of unarmed strangers. To put a gun in everyone’s hand would turn the United States into a country of soldiers and thrust us back to the early colonial days when every citizen was a musket-bearing warrior and did lifetime service in the local militia. Is that what we want from America today—the right to live in a society of permanent armed struggle? If the problem is too many bad men with guns, would it not be wiser to take those guns away from them rather than arm the so-called good men, who in many if not most instances are considerably less than good, and thereby eliminate the problem altogether, for if the bad men had no guns, why would the good men need them? As my mother used to say to me whenever I spun off into one of my wild, passionate speculations about how to improve the world: “Dream on, Paul.

Within the West, the big social inventions have always been happy to define the individual. At various times and to various degrees, social programming has had a ready answer to the question of what the good life meant: being a good Christian, a good citizen, rich, an A student, or a good manager or employee. Imagine defining yourself instead as someone who defines institutions rather than being defined by them. Then imagine what sort of social invention you would have to engage in to create something akin to a school, a church, a government, or a business that would facilitate the person you aspire to be. No Lutheran will ever be as fully expressed as Martin Luther. No Mormon will ever realize her potential the way that Joseph Smith did. No Muslim will ever be more righteous than Mohammed. No Christian will ever be more perfect than Christ, no Jew more law abiding than Moses. Millions – even billions – of people do honor these amazing men by following their example, trying to emulate them. Yet what is interesting is that if a person were really intent on following their example they would refuse to be constrained by their example. That is, if you really want to imitate Joseph Smith or Mohammed or Martin Luther you would never become a Mormon or Muslim or Lutheran. You would, instead, start your own religion in which you subordinate tradition to your own convictions and revelations. You would trust in yourself enough to create rather than imitate. If that sounds irreligious to you, you are wrong. No follower of these men is more religious than they were. (And of course at the time, most people thought of these men as heretics, not true prophets.) Progress is the product of invention. Specifically, progress depends on social invention that subordinates the past to the future, that changes what has been created by past generations in order to realize what is possible for future generations.

Now, I don’t want to be reductive, but I’ll bet half of you are here so you can someday wheedle money out of people—torts people, there’s nothing to be ashamed of!—and the other half of you are here because you think you’re going to change the world. You’re here because you dream of arguing before the Supreme Court, because you think the real challenge of the law lies in the blank spaces between the lines of the Constitution. But I’m here to tell you—it doesn’t. The truest, the most intellectually engaging, the richest field of the law is contracts. Contracts are not just sheets of paper promising you a job, or a house, or an inheritance: in its purest, truest, broadest sense, contracts govern every realm of law. When we choose to live in a society, we choose to live under a contract, and to abide by the rules that a contract dictates for us—the Constitution itself is a contract, albeit a malleable contract, and the question of just how malleable it is, exactly, is where law intersects with politics—and it is under the rules, explicit or otherwise, of this contract that we promise not to kill, and to pay our taxes, and not to steal. But in this case, we are both the creators of and bound by this contract: as citizens of this country, we have assumed, from birth, an obligation to respect and follow its terms, and we do so daily. “In this class, you will of course learn the mechanics of contracts—how one is created, how one is broken, how binding one is and how to unbind yourself from one—but you will also be asked to consider law itself as a series of contracts. Some are more fair—and this one time, I’ll allow you to say such a thing—than others. But fairness is not the only, or even the most important, consideration in law: the law is not always fair. Contracts are not fair, not always. But sometimes they are necessary, these unfairnesses, because they are necessary for the proper functioning of society. In this class you will learn the difference between what is fair and what is just, and, as important, between what is fair and what is necessary. You will learn about the obligations we have to one another as members of society, and how far society should go in enforcing those obligations. You will learn to see your life—all of our lives—as a series of agreements, and it will make you rethink not only the law but this country itself, and your place in it.

When you have an honest heart, you do not get engaged nor get involved with any smear campaigns nor black propaganda! When you have an honest heart, you do not malign nor take advantage of generous people who helped and trusted you! When you have an honest heart, you do not shit on people whom you used and abused for three years! Do not fall into a political naïvety and become a victim or a doormat nor have your generosity and honest heart be used and abused by unscrupulous political movers, abusive, aggressive political harridans who scam gullible generous hearts by asking donations, funds, services, foods, urgent favours, and after using you and abusing your generosity, trust, and kindness; whereby these unscrupulous and deceptive political movers, abusive, aggressive political harridans intentionally and maliciously create forged screenshots of evidence convincing their audience or political groups that you are a mentally ill person, a brain-damaged person as they even brand you as "Sisang Baliw," or crazy Sisa, a threat, a risk, a danger, they maliciously and destructively red-tag your friends as communists, and they resort to calumny, libel and slander against you, to shame you, defame you, discredit you, blame you, hurt you, make you suffer for having known the truth of their deceptive global Operandi, and for something you didn’t do through their mob lynching, calumny, polemics mongering, forgery, and cyberbullying efforts. Their character assassination through libel and slander aims to ruin your integrity, persona, trustworthiness, and credibility with their destructive fabricated calumny, lies, identity theft, forged screenshots of polemics mongering, and framing up. Amidst all their forgery, fraud, libel and slander they committed: you have a right to defy and stop their habitual abuse without breaking the law and fight for your rights against any forms of aggression, public lynching, bullies, threats, blackmail, and their repetitive maltreatment or abuse, identity theft, forgery, deceptions fraud, scams, cyber libel, libel, and slander. When you defend human rights, you fight against corruption and injustice, help end impunity: be sure that you are not part of any misinformation, disinformation, smear campaigns and black propaganda. Do not serve, finance, or cater directly or indirectly for those dirty politicians. Those who are engaged in abusively dishonest ways do not serve to justify their end. Deceiving and scamming other people shall always be your lifetime self-inflicted karmic loss. Be a law-abiding citizen. Be respectful. Be honest. Be factual. Be truthful. You can be an effective human rights defender when you have clean and pure intentions, lawful and morally upright, and have an honest heart." ~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from Calunniatopia Book 1, Stronzata Trilogy Genre: inspirational, political, literary novel © 2021 Ana Angelica Abaya van Doorn

Jimmy likely wrote all three editorials, and one, titled “Who Is for Law and Order?” carried his byline. He argued that the spectacle, seen in other recent conflicts and then repeated most dramatically in the Little Rock crisis, of white people defying police as well as state and federal troops raised the question, “If white people defy the Constitution, who then are the law-abiding citizens of the U.S. and who is for democracy?” Inherent in his answer was a reshaping of the relations between blacks and whites. On one hand this meant the loss of white people’s claim to civic and moral authority. “The Little Rock crisis has put an end to the era of the white man’s burden to preserve democracy,” he asserted. “The white man’s burden now is to prove that he believes in democracy and that he can follow the example of the colored people in upholding law and order.” As for black Americans, their newfound racial assertion struck a blow to the edifice upon which their subordination had long rested. “For years untold colored people have been forced to maneuver in all directions trying to avoid a head-on collision,” Jimmy wrote. “They have allowed white people to name them ‘Negroes’ by which the whites mean a thing and not a person. They have stayed out of the public parks, restaurants, hotels and golf courses, walked on the cinder path when meeting whites on the sidewalk, gone to separate schools, worked on the worst jobs under the worst conditions, smiled and acted unhurt when abused in public places.” But the recent tide of black protest revealed that African Americans were making “an about face.” Black people, he wrote, were not only pressing for their rights but were also beginning to “denounce” the people and practices that had denied them those rights. 80 Jimmy’s analysis of Little Rock differed from other commentaries, which tended to emphasize it as an advance in the struggle for integration, highlight the moral questions it raised, or discuss it as a crisis of authority played out through conflict among the local, state, and national governments. Instead, Jimmy said Little Rock represented a rather sudden transformation now taking place among black people. The importance of Little Rock for him was in revealing how black people were seeing themselves differently and thus making this “about face,” no longer accepting the southern way of life and even rejecting the standards by which white people had organized society and elevated themselves. This analysis, and all of the editorials on Little Rock more generally, continued the focus and tone of Jimmy’s previous writings in the paper, but they also reflected the greater attention that Correspondence was soon to give to the escalating civil rights movement.

In an advanced, civilized country, a handful of men were able to gain for their criminal schemes the enthusiastic backing of millions of decent, educated, law-abiding citizens. What is the factor that made this possible?

Overall, the problem with gun-control laws is not too little regulation, but rather that the regulations disarm law-abiding citizens. Consider a criminal who is intent on massacring people and then planning on taking his own life. He would unlikely be deterred by any penalties for violating gun regulations. For example, expelling students or firing professors for violating campus gun-free zones represent a real life-changing experience for law-abiding citizens—especially since other academic institutions will not admit or hire people who have such gun offenses on their records. But even assuming the killer survives the attack, it is absurd to imagine that after facing multiple life prison sentences or death penalties for killing people, the threat of expulsion from school will be the penalty that ultimately deters the attack.

Only one single policy was found to effectively reduce these attacks: the passage of right-to-carry laws, which permit law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns. But the Times never mentioned concealed handgun laws in their series, despite having knowledge of this research.

apartheid turned many otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals.

Personal obedience to commands is a radically different basis for an inheritance than faith in a promise. While the Scriptures uphold the moral law as the abiding way of life for God’s redeemed people, it can never be a way to life. Every covenant has two parties, and we assume the responsibilities of faithful partners, but the basis of acceptance with God is the covenant-keeping of another, the Servant of the Lord: and because of his faithfulness, we now inherit all of the promises through faith alone, as children of Sarah and citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem.”[

In at least 98 percent of these cases, a shot is never fired. Once an assailant sees that his victim is armed, the inclination is to flee. Because of the fear many law-abiding citizens have of becoming enmeshed in a litigious and punitive criminal justice system, many cases of armed self-defense are never reported.

The use of firearms by law-abiding citizens, however, may prevent more than two million crimes each year.

Six months ago, who would have thought that Handgun Control would be rushing out studies to argue that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns would have no effect, or might have a delayed impact, in terms of dropping crimes?

From my perspective, if a convicted felon is trying to illegally purchase a firearm, I want to know why. Rather than having the federal government go after law-abiding citizens, we ought to come down on the murderers and rapists trying to illegally buy guns.

Each of these facts reflects an ongoing failure of the Obama administration: They have a hard time distinguishing good guys from bad guys. That failure impacts their foreign policy—where we’ve been ineffective going after terrorists, while at the same time not respecting the privacy rights of American citizens—and it impacts domestic policy, where they’ve been far more concerned with stripping the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens than with targeting enforcement efforts at violent criminals.

Plan all you want, it is a very different thing to actually kill a person than to fantasize about it. In your fantasy, you have superhuman strength. Or your action takes no strength at all. You just do it, your arms gliding effortlessly through the weightlessness of your dream world. In reality, you have to plunge a knife or pull a trigger. You have to look into the eyes of an actual person. You see their humanity. You have to push past the respect for life that has been drilled into you since before you could talk. I’m not saying it’s impossible. It happens every day. But for normal people who have lived their whole lives as law-abiding citizens, trying to be polite and well-mannered, respectful of their elders and kind to animals, good listeners and good employees; for people who use their turn signals, and hurry to get to work on. time, leave tips for their letter carrier, and put dollars in the Salvation Army’s red bucket, hoping to make the world a little better— killing another human being is not an easy thing.

Americans—those who liked or needed alcohol—had the same desire to drink and were still able, and the country´s criminals grew prosperous due to the amount of money in the trade of illegal alcohol manufacture, import, and sale. “Intended to create a nation of hardworking, sober, responsible citizens, Prohibition instead quickly transformed a nation of basically law-abiding citizens into a nation of lawbreakers.” (Phillips, 2005).

Interestingly enough, whenever I cite examples from superhero comic books in a lecture, my students never wonder when they will use this information in their "real life". Apparently they all have plans, post-graduation, that involve protecting the City from all threat while wearing spandex. As a law-abiding citizen, this notion fills me with a great sense of security, knowing as I do how many of my scientist colleagues could charitably be termed "mad".

We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of lawbreakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.

A gun-free zone is not even a consideration; all it does is it restricts law-abiding citizens. It doesn’t do a darn thing for the criminal element.

I will not obey orders to disarm Americans. I will not obey orders to conduct warrantless searches. I will not obey orders to detain Americans wrongfully labeled as enemy combatants. I will not obey orders to invade a state that asserts its sovereignty. I will not obey orders to force law-abiding American citizens into detention camps. I will not obey orders to assist foreign troops on United States soil to assert control over our citizens. I will not obey orders to confiscate the property of our citizens, including their food and belongings. I will not obey orders to impose martial law. I will not obey orders to infringe upon the freedoms afforded all Americans in the Bill of Rights.

The Supreme Court has ruled that government may not forbid law-abiding citizens to keep a handgun in their home for self-protection. But as this is written, most lower courts have found a way to uphold almost every other form of gun control, including laws that strip you of your constitutional right the moment you set foot off your private property.

For a citizen who abides by the law, the law is distant and difficult to find. For those who reject and violate it, the law emerges from its musty sepulchers and goes in search of the transgressor.

is clear why the fixed and fluid might think about this issue differently. People who perceive a lot of danger in the world might also wish to have as much protection as possible against those dangers. This might be especially necessary for the fixed because they are less inclined to trust other people. As such, they’re more likely to assume that the bad guys are going to find ways to get guns. Legislative efforts that limit guns’ availability to law-abiding citizens are, therefore, only going to make society more vulnerable to those who threaten law-abiding citizens. Unilateral disarmament, in their view, is just plain stupid.

Our watan is now known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. These are the laws that we will enforce and you will obey: All citizens must pray five times a day. If it is prayer time and you are caught doing something other, you will be beaten. All men will grow their beards. The correct length is at least one clenched fist beneath the chin. If you do not abide by this, you will be beaten. All boys will wear turbans. Boys in grade one through six will wear black turbans, higher grades will wear white. All boys will wear Islamic clothes. Shirt collars will be buttoned. Singing is forbidden. Dancing is forbidden. Playing cards, playing chess, gambling, and kite flying are forbidden. Writing books, watching films, and painting pictures are forbidden. If you keep parakeets, you will be beaten. Your birds will be killed. If you steal, your hand will be cut off at the wrist. If you steal again, your foot will be cut off. If you are not Muslim, do not worship where you can be seen by Muslims. If you do, you will be beaten and imprisoned. If you are caught trying to convert a Muslim to your faith, you will be executed. Attention women: You will stay inside your homes at all times. It is not proper for women to wander aimlessly about the streets. If you go outside, you must be accompanied by a mahram, a male relative.

If being sexy was a crime I'd be a law abiding citizen

Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist Papers, wrote, “If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense.” But the United States’ first statesmen also recognized that the right to bear arms was a means by which law-abiding citizens could protect themselves, their families, and their property from those who would do them harm.

But like the U.S. Government, the Canadian powers-that-be never seemed to realize that criminals don’t pay any attention to rules and regulations and laws. The only group of people who are punished by restrictive gun laws are the law-abiding citizens.

I'm Above The Law (The Sonnet) Yes, I am above the law, So is every single world builder. It's only the apes without brain who, Are tamed by the medieval lawmaker. If you are to be a civilized being, It is your duty to rise above the law. If you can't tell right from wrong, It is common sense you lack, not law. It is nothing but a juvenile democracy, That is founded on spineless law-abidance. Civilized democracy instills accountability, What it doesn't demand is boneheaded obedience. You have a heart, brain and spine, why not use them! Stand up o citizen justice, and keep the law as servant.

Would you rather I were a law-abiding citizen, Mr. Rearden? If so, which law should I abide by? Directive 10-289?

My two oldest brothers are proper gangsters. They handle the messier parts of the family business. But Sebastian thinks he’s going to the NBA. He’s living in a whole other reality than the rest of us. Trying to be a good boy, a law-abiding citizen. Still, he’s the closest to me in age, and probably my best friend, though I love all my brothers.

Oooh, I bet this baby really rips up the highway.” “I suppose it would, but the speed limit is only sixty or seventy miles an hour, depending whether you’re in town or out in the boonies.” Lena snorted. “Yeah, right. You’ve got all those horses corralled under the hood and you drive like an old lady? Tell me another one.” He gave her an innocent look. “I’ll have you know I’m a law-abiding citizen.” That cracked her up big-time. “Sandor Kearn, ‘fess up. What’ll she do?” He winked at her. “Rumor has it that she’ll top out at one-seventy in the straightaway, but I’m only telling you what I’ve heard on the streets.” “And I bet those rumors started right after you blasted by someone who happened to have a stopwatch or a radar gun.

If you see yourself as a law abiding citizen, breaking the law doesn’t conform with your self-image.

had always been a law abiding citizen. Had always respected policemen. Had always defended them, when others might complain they were too unfair, too brutal, too corrupt.      “They have a tough job to do,” Dave would tell them. “Until you’re brave enough to do it yourself, leave them alone. And when you go to sleep each night and say your prayers, thank God you have them around to protect you.

As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant of the people…

The upstanding, church-going, law-abiding, tax-paying citizen who votes Democrat or Republican is far more despicable, and a bigger threat to humanity, than the most promiscuous, lazy, drug-snorting hippie. Why? Because the hippie is willing to let others be free, and the voter is not.

Consider lynching. Nearly the whole complex of state violation of its citizens, which we see in today’s death penalty, is evident in the history of lynching. As Naomi Murakawa notes, “lynching was paradigmatic of the indivisibility of white violence: it was violence achieved at once through ‘private’ white actors, through complicit local police, and through the unearned accumulation of white economic and political power and oppositional definitions of rational, law-abiding whites over irrational, criminal blacks.

When the U.S. government turns to domestic spying and illegal harassment of citizens, it rarely if ever has been known to go after billionaires, corporate CEOs, or their advocates; it has a track record of using its spying powers domestically on, among others, law-abiding and nonviolent dissident groups that challenge entrenched wealth and privilege. When one sees how peaceful Occupy protesters have been made the target of Homeland Security covert scrutiny here in the United States—while the bankers whose dubious shenanigans helped drive the economy off a cliff waltz free—the dimensions of the problem grow stark.

The statistics tell part of the story. In America government spending increased from 7.5 percent of GDP in 1913 to 19.7 percent in 1937, to 27 percent in 1960, to 34 percent in 2000, and to 41 percent in 2011. In Britain it rose from 13 percent in 1913 to 48 percent in 2011, and the average share in thirteen rich countries has climbed from 10 percent to around 47 percent.4 But these figures do not fully capture the way that government has become part of the fabric of our lives. America’s Leviathan claims the right to tell you how long you need to study to become a hairdresser in Florida (two years) and the right to monitor your e-mails. It also obliges American hospitals to follow 140,000 codes for ailments they treat, including one for injuries from being hit by a turtle. Government used to be an occasional partner in life, the contractor on the other side of Hobbes’s deal, the night watchman looking over us in Mill’s. Today it is an omnipresent nanny. Back in 1914 “a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman,” the historian A.J.P. Taylor once observed. “He could live where he liked and as he liked. . . . Broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.” Today the sensible, law-abiding Englishman cannot pass through an hour, let alone a lifetime, without noticing the existence of the state.

if we focus only on getting our kids to obey without first addressing the way grace and a relationship with Jesus inspire our hearts to grateful obedience, we’ll end up creating law-abiding citizens on the outside but little rebels on the inside.

To provide post-secondary education to prisoners is not advocating that we be “soft on crime.” It is simply the most effective and least expensive method of getting some control over crime and reducing the crippling tax burden that crime imposes on law-abiding citizens.

The inmates at CSP were different from our population of law-abiding citizens, but to place them on a different planet would be a mistake. There was no absolute disconnect between these men and the rest of society. Every one of us harbors a streak of dishonesty, of amorality, of suppressed violence. Given the right circumstances we all are capable of atrocious actions.

Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against—then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of lawbreakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.” Watching

The same holds true for Community Policing. It is best defined as what the police do when they operate under the Community Policing concept. Conveniently, Community Policing has been given a descriptive definition: Community policing is a collaborative partnership between the police and law-abiding citizens designed to prevent crime, arrest offenders, solve neighborhood problems and improve the quality of life in the community.

You are no longer welcome in this house,” she said pleasantly. His smile didn’t waver, but he took off his disreputable old hat. “Is that any way to treat a law-abiding citizen of Whitneyville, Miss Emma?” “If I should encounter one,” Emma said stiffly, “I’ll be sure and deal with him kindly.” Steven chuckled. “You’re a saucy little hellcat,” he said, strolling toward her. “And I’ve got half a mind to kiss you again.” Emma

if God’s very identity is to be The Ruler, what kind of salvation can he offer me (if he’s even prepared to offer such a thing)? If God is The Ruler and the problem is that I have broken the rules, the only salvation he can offer is to forgive me and treat me as if I had kept the rules. But if that is how God is, my relationship with him can be little better than my relationship with any traffic cop (meaning no offence to any readers in the constabulary). Let me put it like this: if, as never happens, some fine copper were to catch me speeding and so breaking the rules, I would be punished; if, as never happens, he failed to spot me or I managed to shake him off after an exciting car chase, I would be relieved. But in neither case would I love him. And even if, like God, he chose to let me off the consequences of my law-breaking, I still would not love him. I might feel grateful, and that gratitude might be deep, but that is not at all the same thing as love. And so it is with the divine policeman: if salvation simply means him letting me off and counting me as a law-abiding citizen, then gratitude (not love) is all I have. In other words, I can never really love the God who is essentially just The Ruler. And that, ironically, means I can never keep the greatest command: to love the Lord my God.