“As Locke sees, equality in authority entails denying to the legal system's administrators—and thus to the legal system itself—any powers beyond those possessed by private citizens:The law of nature is in that state put into every man's hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation…. For in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do.Lockean equality involves not merely equality before legislators, judges, and police, but, far more crucially, equality with legislators, judges, and police.”
"Equality: the Unknown Ideal" (2001)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Roderick Long 11
American philosopher 1964Related quotes

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 267.

Source: The Modern Rack (1889), Ch. XV: Four Reasons for Total Prohibition of Vivisection, pp. 223-224

The Rights of the Colonists (1772)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 393.

Spoken by Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy in the Law & Order episode Vaya Con Dios.
Law & Order