Keith

“A coherent vision of blanket state sovereign immunity virtually compels the results in Hans [v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1 (1890)] and Ex parte New York [256 U.S. 490 (1921)]; if noncitizen suits are barred in law and equity, there is simply no good reason not to extend sovereign immunity to citizen and admiralty suits. The problem, of course, is that the results in Hans and Ex parte New York contradict the unambiguous limitations of the Eleventh Amendment's text—a contradiction that suggests the clear error of the Supreme Court's first interpretive premise that the Amendment is in fact concerned with sovereign immunity. If coherence of general sovereign immunity doctrine is achieved only by mangling the Amendment's text, the obvious lesson should be that the Amendment was not designed to embody any such doctrine.”
― Akhil Reed Amar, Of Sovereignty and Federalism

“I think that what we mean in practice by reason can be defined by three characteristics. In the first place, it relies upon persuasion rather than force; in the second place, it seeks to persuade by means of arguments which the man who uses them believes to be completely valid; and in the third place, in forming opinions, it uses observation and induction as much as possible and intuition as little as possible. The first of these rules out the Inquisition; the second rules out such methods as those of British war propaganda, which Hitler praises on the ground that propaganda “must sink its mental elevation deeper in proportion to the numbers of the mass whom it has to grip”; the third forbids the use of such a major premise as that of President Andrew Jackson a propos of the Mississippi, “the God of the Universe intended this great valley to belong to one nation,” which was self-evident to him and his hearers, but not easily demonstrated to one who questioned it.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Will to Doubt

“If heaven ever accepts a prayer, it will hide this behind a sequence of natural facts.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy

“Why was it sensible for Americans to transubstantiate a convention into the virtual embodiment of the People? After all, as with an ordinary legislative assembly, a convention assembly may improve the ultimate quality of public deliberation, see, e.g., THE FEDERALIST No. 55, at 342 (J. Madison), but only by excluding most citizens, thereby raising fiduciary/agency problems. An answer based on organization theory/incentive analysis might focus on how a ratification convention is structured differently from an ordinary legislature in ways that enhance monitoring and improve public accountability. First, the People select convention delegates in a special election. Second, delegates are generally convened to consider a single issue (ratification). Third and related, the basic choice set is binary (yes-no), reducing agenda manipulation problems and decreasing the monitoring problems that exist in an ordinary legislature with virtually infinite possibilities of side deals and vote trading. Fourth, conventions immediately disband and disperse among the People, reducing the problem of legislators entrenching themselves and developing their own institutional perspectives. Finally, a convention enhances a sense of public-spiritedness and individual moral responsibility among both voters and delegates. Calling a "convention" signals to all concerned that the polity is entering a high-stakes moment when basic ground rules will be hammered out. Interestingly, criminal juries (deciding the single issue of individual guilt or innocence) possess many more convention attributes than do ordinary legislatures.”
― Akhil Reed Amar, Of Sovereignty and Federalism