Randi Weingarten Quotes

However, it was the great 18th century social philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who brought the concept of a social contract between citizens and governments sharply into political thinking, paving the way for popular democracy and constitutional republicanism.

Our nation is built on the bedrock principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

If government be founded in the consent of the people, it can have no power over any individual by whom that consent is refused.

The myth that John Locke was the philosopher behind the American Republic, is easily refuted by examining how Locke's philosophy steered Thomas Jefferson, for example.

Our Constitution does not profess to have been established simply by the majority, but by 'the people' - the minority as much as the majority.

The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.

It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals.

And government's only role is to secure our rights for us.

The free society tolerates those within it who would use that freedom to destroy it.

… the origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact, between the rulers and the ruled; and must be liable to such limitations, as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter; for what original title can any man or set of men have, to govern others, except their own consent?

No man is good enough to govern another without the other man's consent. I say this is the leading principle, the sheet anchor of American republicanism. … the just powers of governments are derived from the consent of the governed.

Sovereignty resides originally in the people, and in each individual with regard to himself; and that it is the transferring and uniting the several rights of individuals in the person of the sovereign, that constitutes him such, and really produces sovereignty.

All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.

Men are born free, that since they begin with no government, they must therefore institute government by voluntary agreement, and thus government must be their agent, not their superior.

Locke contended that government originates out of the necessity for protecting property.

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.

We are... living in a free society without the faith that built that society - and without the conviction and dedication needed to sustain it... We still have the cathedral of freedom but how long will it last without the faith?

The modern university does not exist to teach alone...It exists also to serve the democracy of which it is a product and an ornament...The university rests on the public will and on public appreciation.

Freedom & Duty always go hand in hand and if the free do not accept the duty of social responsibility, they will not long remain free.

Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.

Government must not supersede the will of the people or the responsibilities of the people. The function of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.

We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

Our government is based on the belief that a people can be both strong and free, that civilized men need no restraint but that imposed by themselves against abuse of freedom.

And where else will [Hume,] this degenerate son of science, this traitor to his fellow men, find the origin of just powers, if not in the majority of the society? Will it be in the minority? Or in an individual of that minority?

The authority of government . . . can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.