There is a pattern here.
I quote the Constitution, Jefferson (who mostly wrote it), and the Founders (who helped write it).
You quote modern apologists for today's Imperial Presidency, where the separation of powers, and the right to a trial, and the right of habeas corpus, have become obsolete. And the resort to force (first, last, and always) has become habitual.
"[Montesquieu wrote in his Spirit of Laws, IX,c.2:] 'The spirit of monarchy is war and enlargement of domain: peace and moderation are the spirit of a republic." --Thomas Jefferson
"I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1822.
"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820 |
