QotD: Government

Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.

Janice Rogers Brown, "A Whiter Shade of Pale," Speech to Federalist Society (April 20. 2000). Linked from People for the American Way anti-Brown quotes page.