Utopian Dreams

A discouraging assessment of big government.

"They didn’t seem to much anticipate people subverting the constitutional framework itself in the way it has happened historically: that the Supreme Court would declare growing food on your own land for your own consumption to be commerce “among the several states,” that vast hordes of sophists would insist that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” is a reference to the National Guard (established in 1903), that the power to take property for “public use” would encompass seizing people’s homes so that multibillion dollar corporations can have a more profitable store location, that the existence of the words “general welfare” would be taken to mean that the government could do anything whatsoever that is not expressly forbidden by the Constitution, or that the 10th Amendment would just sort of vanish. The supporters of the Constitution understood and feared human ambition, but badly underrated human cleverness."

"Those who believer that a single institution can be given a monopoly on force, the right to be the judge in cases against itself, and the sole right to interpret the laws binding itself, and then be expected to behave because of a piece of paper--they are the ones indulging in utopian fantasies."

Utopian Dreams