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“A state exists not merely to govern, but to protect human dignity in its fullest sense. When essential services become privileges, justice is reduced to rhetoric. True governance ensures that the weakest citizen stands as equal before opportunity, care, and law.”

Last update Sept. 26, 2026. History

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“Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Concurring in Adarand v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=U10252&friend=oyez (1995). <br class="br">1990s <br class="br">Context: [I disagree] that there is a racial paternalism exception to the principle of equal protection. I believe that there is a 'moral [and] constitutional equivalence,' between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality. Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.

“Liberty, equality — bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble becomes necessarily protection or kindness.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

Undated entry of December 1863 or early 1864, as translated by Humphry Ward (1893), p. 215
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries

“Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Writing for the court, United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996)

“The true measure of the justice of a system is the amount of protection it guarantees to the weakest.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

In Quest of Democracy (1991)

“A Government to perform even a minimum of service to its people, must take steps to suppress avarice, to strike down privately built-up schemes of economic exploitation or oppression, to uproot privilege, and to assure justice and economic opportunity to the masses.”

Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) American judge

New York Times Obituary (October 10, 1954)

“What’s wrong with empowering government? When you give government new powers and responsibilities, you are also increasing its police power. If we put government in charge of a thing — say, ensuring income equality — we are also handing it the power to police that thing nationwide, to impose penalties for breaches of its new regulations, and ultimately to coerce citizens into compliance. At the limit, we grant the state the power to take our money, imprison us, and even execute us if we violate its laws.”

Paul D. Miller (academic) American academic

Why Socialism Is Bad (2018)

“Equality of treatment is the chief purpose for which the Government exists … Liberty is but an equality of justice.”

George Howard Earle, Jr. (1856–1928) American lawyer

From Hearing Before the Committee on Interstate Commerce: United States Senate Sixty-second Congress pursuant to S. Res. 98 &c. (6 December 1911:803)

“This is tribalism at its worst. Beginning with Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the Jewish value of human dignity and the principle of the equality of all people have formed the democratic foundation of the state. This law is completely incompatible with those values. It is a slap in the face to Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel and provides a legal basis to discriminate based on religion, race, and sex. Legislation that identifies first- and second-class citizens has no place in a democracy. Basic laws should define the fundamental values of the state. If racism, sexism, and religious fundamentalism are to be protected in Israel’s basic laws, it should be no surprise when the country embodies those values. This bill and the government that supported it are a danger to Israel’s future.”

Daniel Sokatch (1968) CEO of the New Israel Fund

About the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, NIF CEO: Israel’s “Nation-State Bill” Is Tribalism At Its Worst; Completely Incompatible with Human Dignity and Equality https://www.nif.org/news-media/press-releases/nif-ceo-israels-nation-state-bill-is-tribalism-at-its-worst-completely-incompatible-with-human-dignity-and-equality/ (10 July 2018), New Israel Fund.

“The millions of laws which exist for the regulation of humanity appear upon investigation to be divided into three principal categories: protection of property, protection of persons, protection of government.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Source: Law and Authority (1886), IV
Context: The millions of laws which exist for the regulation of humanity appear upon investigation to be divided into three principal categories: protection of property, protection of persons, protection of government. And by analyzing each of these three categories, we arrive at the same logical and necessary conclusion: the uselessness and hurtfulness of law.

“Unlike utilitarianism, republican theory does not take people's existing preferences, whatever they may be, and try to satisfy them. It seeks instead to cultivate in citizens the qualities of character necessary to the common good of self-government. Insofar as certain dispositions, attachments, and commitments are essential to the realization of self-government, republican politics regards moral character as a public, not merely private, concern. In this sense, it attends to the identity, not just the interests, of its citizens.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

Chap. 2. Rights and the Neutral States
Democracy's Discontent (1996)

“A state exists not merely to govern, but to protect human dignity in its fullest sense. When essential services become privileges, justice is reduced to rhetoric. True governance ensures that the weakest citizen stands as equal before opportunity, care, and law.”

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