While Justice Sleeps

by Stacey Abrams

Show man ignoble work and easy sex, and there went civilization.

“Knowing the law isn’t about the school. It’s about the mind. The heart. About understanding what the law intends as much as reading beneath what it says. Knowing how to find one’s way to the truth.”

“Why American history? Other nations have achieved greatness with less hubris and narcissism.” “Agreed. But America is a contradictory and precocious country, sir. We have, in a very short period of time, managed to commit venal sins against our own people and offer the world repeat examples of exceptionalism. Americans are greedy, brilliant, ambitious, and compassionate. We like to remind everyone about our genius, and yet our leaders make fun of smart people. In less than two centuries, we took over more than half a continent, placed a man on the moon, and invented the Clapper.

“Lies and truth aren’t good or bad. A bad person can tell the truth, and an honest person can lie.”

Trust cost more than self-reliance,

Despite knowing how vulnerable technology can be, bureaucrats placed their faith in the myth of privacy. Their job relied on the fairy tales Americans told themselves about their government,

the wisest minds understand not simply the depths and the surface, but everything in between.”