The Dark Side

He who does battle with monsters needs to watch out lest he in the process becomes a monster himself. And if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss will stare right back at you. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

"Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates." ~ Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, No. 8.

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." ~ Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States, 1928.

"The Constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime president." ~ Francis Biddle, FDR's Attorney General, 1962

"Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every men to become a law unto himself... To declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal--would bring terrible retribution." ~ Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States, 1928.

A lady asked Dr. [Benjamin] Franklin, "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
"A republic," replied the Doctor, "if we can keep it."
~ Papers of Dr. James McHenry, describing their exit from the 1787 Federal Convention, Philadelphia.