Yitzhak Zamir Quotes

There are many times where national interest is more important than the law.

It is true, indeed, that the national domain is ours. It is true it was acquired by the valor and with the wealth of the whole nation. But we hold, nevertheless, no arbitrary power over it.

Now judicial review, beloved by conservatives, can, of course, fulfill the excellent function of declaring government interventions and tyrannies unconstitutional. But it can also validate and legitimize the government in the eyes of the people by declaring these actions valid and constitutional.

My belief is that the nation-state remains the one entity that can function, the one entity that can demand sacrifice from its constituents in the national interest.

No civilized society can long exist, with an active power in its bosom that is stronger than the law.

The idea of the state is, or should be, a very limited, prescribed idea. The state looks after the defense of the realm, and other matters - raising revenue to pay for things which are for all of us, and so on. That idea has turned turtle now. The state isn't any longer perceived as an institution which exists to serve us.

The government has a responsibility to protect society, to help maintain society. That's why we have laws... The rule of law creates a set of standards for our behavior.

My book is focused on the power of the American state, not least because the government of the United States governs so much that the case could be made that everybody around the world ought to have a vote in determining some of its policies.

We do not take away the powers of surveillance. We do not take away the right and the power of the government to go after those who would do us wrong.

The preservation of our national security and the laws that define us as the United States of America demand that we understand the intersection of the two - indeed, how they reinforce one another.

Judges, like other citizens, do not wish to hinder a nation’s ‘war effort’.

A rule of law is superior to a rule of force.

No one will suppose that a government could have lasted a single year, if offenses against its laws could not have been punished without the consent of the state in which the culprit was found.

But the king should not be under any man, only under God and the law, for the law makes the king. Let the king therefore attribute to the law what the law attributes to him, namely lordship and power, for there is no king where will rules and not the law.

The power of eminent domain is essential to a sovereign government.

The public power of all society is above every soul contained in the same society.

The safety of the state is the highest law.

In a sense, the police power is but another name for the power of government.

We cannot say that we love the rule of law and reject arguments that appeal to the rule of law as technicalities and hair splitting.

Let every American … swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country and never to tolerate their violation by others. Let reverence for the laws … become the political religion of the nation.

We are charged with being a menace to the United States, with being inimical to the Constitution and Government, simply because we have undertaken to legitimately and legally test in the courts, as we have the most perfect right to do, the legality and constitutionality of the law and the commissioners' rulings

The practice of a ruling power in the State is but a feeble proof of its legality.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced

The first duty of a state is to provide for its own conservation. Until that point is secured, it can preserve and protect nothing else. But, if possible, it has greater interest in acting according to strict law than even the subject himself. For if the people see that the law is violated to crush them, they will certainly despise the law. They, or their party, will be easily led to violate it, whenever they can, by all the means in their power. Except in cases of direct war, whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy.

What have we allowed ourselves to become? Are we no longer a nation of laws? Have we become instead a nation of men who make secret arrests? Are secret prisons now simply another tool of the federal government law enforcement? Is secret rendition of individuals now permitted, out of misplaced fear? Have we decided that the writ of habeas corpus is not worth defending? Is torture now an acceptable tool for making us safe? Unfortunately, the single answer to all of these questions from the leaders of our country and to many of our citizens appears to be yes.