Political Sovereignty Quotes & Sayings

Spontaneous order is self-contradictory. Spontaneity connotes the ebullition of surprises. It is highly entropic and disorderly. It is entrepreneurial and complex. Order connotes predictability and equilibrium. It is what is not spontaneous. It includes moral codes, constitutional restraints, personal disciplines, educational integrity, predictable laws, reliable courts, stable money, trustworthy finance, strong families, dependable defense, and police powers. Order requires political guidance, sovereignty, and leadership. It normally entails religious beliefs. The entire saga of the history of the West conveys the courage and sacrifice necessary to enforce and defend these values against their enemies. — George Gilder

As neoliberalism wages war on public goods and the very idea of a public, including citizenship beyond membership, it dramatically thins public life without killing politics. Struggles remain over power, hegemonic values, resources, and future trajectories. This persistence of politics amid the destruction of public life and especially educated public life, combined with the marketization of the political sphere, is part of what makes contemporary politics peculiarly unappealing and toxic - full of ranting and posturing, emptied of intellectual seriousness, pandering to an uneducated and manipulable electorate and a celebrity-and-scandal-hungry corporate media. Neoliberalism generates a condition of politics absent democratic institutions that would support a democratic public and all that such a public represents at its best: informed passion, respectful deliberation, aspirational sovereignty, sharp containment of powers that would overrule or undermine it. — Wendy Brown

The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into theheritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony
unaware, alas, of the fact that Europe's declining power was preceded and accompanied by political bankruptcy, the bankruptcy of the nation-state and its concept of sovereignty. — Hannah Arendt

The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities, or even for the benefit of the public officials governing the States. To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals. — Sandra Day O'Connor

The United Nations, he told an audience at Harvard University, 'has not been able-nor can it be able-to shape a new world order which events so compellingly demand.' ... The new world order that will answer economic, military, and political problems, he said, 'urgently requires, I believe, that the United States take the leadership among all free peoples to make the underlying concepts and aspirations of national sovereignty truly meaningful through the federal approach.' — Nelson Rockefeller

The idea of sovereignty current in the English speaking world of the 1760's was scarcely more than a century old. It had first emerged during the English Civil War, in the early 1640's, and had been established as a canon of Whig political thought in the Revolution of 1688. — Bernard Bailyn

It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out. — Niall Ferguson

Islam is a system given by God and it aims to establish a fundamental principle of God's sovereignty and people's servitude to Him alone," Qutb wrote. "As such, Islam has the right to remove all obstacles from its way and address people freely without any impediments such as a political system or social customs and traditions . . . it is the right of Islam to take the initiative. It is not the creed of a particular people or the system of a particular country. It is a system given by God for the entire world. As such, it has the right to take action to remove all obstacles that fetter man's freedom of choice. It is a faith that does not force itself on any individual, it only attacks situations and regimes in order to free individuals from deviant influences that corrupt human nature and restrict man's freedom. — Mark Bowden

Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce - yes, announce - that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by ... liberals. — George F. Will

The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or limited sovereignty, or absolute power is the same [whether] in a majority of a popular assembly; an aristocratic council; or oligarchical junto and a single emperor - equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody and in every respect diabolical. — John Adams

Political elites look increasingly interchangeable: Blair, Brown, and Cameron have all tried to provide cover for the surrender of sovereignty to foreign investors with invocations of 'British' values, and, more opportunistically, anti-immigrant rhetoric. — Pankaj Mishra

I am extremely conscious of my tribalism. And when you talk about tribalism, you talk about living in a black and white world. I mean, Native American tribalism sovereignty, even the political fight for sovereignty and cultural sovereignty is a very us versus them. And I think a lot of people in this country, especially European Americans and those descended from Europeans don't see themselves as tribal. — Sherman Alexie

The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside. — Kwame Nkrumah

The French Revolution propagated two quite revolutionary ideas. One was that political change was not exceptional or bizarre but normal and thus constant. The second was that "sovereignty" - the right of the state to make autonomous decisions within its realm - did not reside in (belong to) either a monarch or a legislature but in the "people" who, alone, could legitimate a regime. — Anonymous

A citizen of the United States, means a member of this new nation. The principle of government being radically changed by the revolution, the political character of the people was also changed from subjects to citizens.
The difference is immense. Subject is derived from the latin word 'sub' and 'jacio', and means one who is under the power of another; but a citizen is an unit of mass of free people, who, collectively, possess sovereignty .
Subjects look up to a master, but citizens are so far equal, that none have hereditary rights superior to others. Each citizen of a free state contains, within himself, by nature and constitution, as much of the common sovereignty as another. In the eye of reason and philosophy, the political condition of citizens is more exalted than that of noblemen. Dukes and earls are the features of kings, and may be made by them at pleasure; but citizens possess in their own right original sovereignty. — David Ramsay

A student of Syrian affairs soon becomes used to paradox. A comparatively small country, narrowly chauvinistic and jealous of its national sovereignty, Syria is nevertheless the repository, and has often been the origin, of oecumenical and transcendental ideas about Arab unity. Its society is one of the most heterogeneous in the Middle East and yet its leaders have been the proponents of a radical integrative political movement: Arab Nationalism. It has kindly and hospitable inhabitants, but it is also a police state where a man can be locked up indefinitely without a trial. Your Syrian friends are your friends for life, but a curious current of xenophobia runs through the country. Syrians love culture and natural beauty, but the ugliness of many Syrians towns and their architecture has to be seen to be believed. — David Roberts

Capitalism means free enterprise, sovereignty of the consumers in economic matters, and sovereignty of the voters in political matters. Socialism means full government control of every sphere of the individuals life and the unrestricted supremacy of the government in its capacity as central board of production management. — Ludwig Von Mises

The war against jihadism has been chronically misunderstood because of our failure to acknowledge the religious motives of Muslim jihadists. This failure began in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Trapped in our Western secularist paradigms, we interpreted the uprising against the Shah as an anti-colonial revolt against a "brutal" autocrat propped up by the West for its own exploitative economic and geostrategic purposes. The aim of the revolution, the argument went, was to create a government more sympathetic to national sovereignty and Western pluralistic government. However, it soon became clear with the political triumph of the Ayatollah Khomeini that the revolution was in the main a religious one, inspired in part by anger at the Shah's secularization, modernization, and liberalization policies. As Khomeini said in 1962, the Shah's regime was "fundamentally opposed to Islam itself and the existence of a religious class. — Anonymous

It is superfluous to try by the standards of theory, a part of the constitution which is allowed on all hands to be the result not of theory, but "of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable" ... the equal vote allowed to each state, is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. — James Madison

From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty — Victor Hugo

Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights — Nathaniel Branden

President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming ... Why doesn't President Bush just tell the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union. — Jerome Corsi

Many Muslims in Saudi Arabia believe that the core values of Islam, namely acknowledgement of God's sovereignty and basic human equality before God, are themselves compatible with liberty, equality and free political choice. — Noah Feldman

It was the French Revolution that served as the catalyst of this renovation. Its impact was to make the concept of popular sovereignty the new moral justification for the political system of historical capitalism. — Immanuel Wallerstein

There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule, executions without trial or with a mock trial for political offenses, the nationalization or expropriation of private property, and censorship. A country guilty of these outrages forfeits any moral prerogatives, any claim to national rights or sovereignty, and becomes an outlaw. — Ayn Rand

But I am sure also that from a political point of view, and from a social point of view the federal link, without infringing the sovereignty of any of the nations which might take part in such as association, could be beneficial. — Aristide Briand

Because widespread participation is so central to popular sovereignty, we can say that the less political participation there is in a society, the weaker the democracy. — Edward S. Greenberg

Change no man's religion, change no man's politics, interrupt the sovereignty of no nation. Instead, teach Man to use what he has and what he knows to the factual creation, within any political reference, of a civilization on Earth for the first time. — L. Ron Hubbard

Money power cannot be separated from democratic power without miscarriage and ensuing frustration - political and economic. Democracy implies the sovereignty of man; and, since man cannot be sovereign without the money power, there can not be democracy under the political money system. — E.C. Riegel

Political sovereignty is but a mockery without the means of meeting poverty and illiteracy and disease. Self-determination is but a slogan if the future holds no hope. — John F. Kennedy

The essential task ahead requires formulating an adequate doctrine, upholding principles that have been thoroughly studied, and, beginning from these, giving birth to an Order. This elite, differentiating itself on a plane that is defined in terms of spiritual virility, decisiveness, and impersonality, and where every naturalistic bond loses its power and value, will be the bearer of a new principle of a higher authority and sovereignty; it will be able to denounce subversion and demagogy in whatever form they appear and reverse the downward spiral of the top-level cadres and the irresistible rise to power of the masses. From this elite, as if from a seed, a political organism and an integrated nation will emerge, enjoying the same dignity as the nations created by the great European political tradition. Anything short of this amounts only to a quagmire, dilettantism, irrealism, and obliquity. — Julius Evola

Nations sometimes flourish by denying the crimes that brought them into being. Only when the original invasion, occupation, extermination or usurpation has been safely thrust into the political unconscious can sovereignty feel secure. — Terry Eagleton

The implications of the transfer of full sovereignty from separate nations to a World Organization ... Political unification in some sort of World Government will be required ... Even though ... any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable. — Julian Huxley

The triune God exercises total government over all things, and He requires us as His image-bearers to exercise government in Christ in our own spheres in terms of His law. — Rousas John Rushdoony

It is a different matter entirely to commit military resources to keep peace in such areas, where often no peace can be kept, or to build nations in our own image before they are ready for our freedoms - or even want them. The military need not do the work of sanctions and diplomacy. As we carry on in this new century, we would do well to remember the importance of balancing the twin goals of our foreign policy: preserving national security and promoting democratic principles. And we must remember that historic conflicts between enemies can be won on moral force, without firing a single bullet or missile; that cultural, market, political, and perhaps religious forces can be far more transformative in areas of the world where chaos and violence reign; and that America can contribute to the building of nations by any and all of these means - while preserving our military and reserving our sovereign right to wage war to maintain true peace. — Jeane Kirkpatrick

The world political system is till based on the concept of the national sovereign state. For the first time therefore, in three hundred years economy and sovereignty are becoming divorced from each other. — Peter Drucker

A transitional government is the beginning of a transfer of sovereignty. It's a question of Iraqi security and moving forward with the political process. — Joschka Fischer

As God can protect his people under the greatest despotism, so the utmost civil liberty is no safety to them without the immediate protection of his Almighty arm. I fear that Christians in this country have too great a confidence in political institutions ... [rather] than of the government of God. — Alexander Carson

Individuals in Western states are sovereign over their own households; they enjoy consumer sovereignty through the market and political sovereignty through elections. — Roger Scruton