Political Quotes

“The whole premise of civil government is that we will be safer inside the social contract than outside of it, the state of nature which Thomas Hobbes famously described as a state of war, ``solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.'' So we give up the habits of violent self-help for trust in the rule of law and the impartial administration of justice. But where was the American social contract for George Floyd as Officer Chauvin asphyxiated him with his knee as he begged for his life; or Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT who was shot eight times in her own bed by officers carrying a no-knock warrant; or Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who had a water fight in the park, and then was shot dead by a police officer getting out of his car? The American social contract has always been contaminated by racism. In the words of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision, our Constitution began as a ``White man's compact'' in which the African American had ``no rights the White man was bound to respect.'' The Civil War gave us the chance for a new birth of freedom, but after 12 years of reconstruction, it was washed away by the KKK and Jim Crow. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.”