Our Lost Constitution Quotes

“Although I hardly knew this man (that is, beyond his unusually impressive résumé and his outstanding public-service record), I was as surprised as I was disappointed by his rage-filled reaction to what I thought were legitimate questions. At that moment I knew he wasn’t interested in engaging in a meaningful discussion of the Constitution. I politely but promptly ended the phone call, thanking the man for his time and concern. Then I voted against the PATRIOT Act.”
― Mike Lee, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document

“Nonetheless, under current law, an e-mail is presumed to be abandoned after only 180 days, at which time the government has a statutory right to read it.”
― Mike Lee, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document

“The agency even had its own mascot—the Blue Eagle. Paying a disturbing, un-American kind of homage to this new, powerful, government agency, shopkeepers displayed the Blue Eagle in their store windows to advertise their compliance with the regulatory rules, and chorus girls wore emblems of the bird on their costumes.11 Consumers, meanwhile, were encouraged to shop only where the Blue Eagle was proudly displayed. In fact, the mascot inspired the name of the NFL franchise created in Philadelphia in 1933, the Philadelphia Eagles.”
― Mike Lee, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document

“Even the judge who ruled in Wilkes’s case that general warrants were invalid found fame and admiration in America. Soon after his decision in Wilkes’s case, Lord Chief Justice Pratt inherited the title Lord Camden. As in Camden, New Jersey. And Camden, South Carolina. And the B&O Railroad’s Camden Station, on whose rail yards was later built the home of the Baltimore Orioles—Camden Yards.”
― Mike Lee, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document

“On another occasion he toasted to the king’s “long life,” only to be questioned by his host, the king’s son and heir, “Since when have you been so anxious about my parent’s health?” Wilkes smiled and said, “Since I had the pleasure of your Royal Highness’s acquaintance.”
― Mike Lee, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document

“When an opponent predicted Wilkes would die from either hanging or the pox, Wilkes fired back, “That depends, my Lord, on whether I embrace your lordship’s principles or your mistress.”
― Mike Lee, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document

“One day over lunch in 1958, a law clerk asked out of the blue, “Mr. Justice, why did you join the Klan?” A painfully awkward silence fell over the lunch table. Clerks rarely ask justices personal questions. They never ask embarrassing personal questions. According to one of the other clerks there, “It was eerie. We just stared straight ahead. Those few seconds seemed like hours.”46 Then Hugo Black broke the silence. Laughing at his membership in, and reliance on, a terrorist organization responsible for the torture and murder of countless Americans, Black smiled. “Why, son,” he said, “if you wanted to be elected to the Senate in Alabama in the 1920s, you’d join the Klan too.”
― Mike Lee, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document

“Before long, the policy of putting quotas on oranges went from bad to worse. A Navel Orange Administrative Committee created by the Department of Agriculture began setting the policy, and Sunkist, a titan in the orange industry, was given outsized influence over the committee.”
― Mike Lee, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document

“The kindest reaction Hamilton received was from Benjamin Franklin. He was asleep. In contrast, Hamilton’s ally James Madison was alert—but with worry in his eyes and woe written across his face.7”
― Mike Lee, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document

“I KEEP TWO TOWERS OF DOCUMENTS IN MY SENATE OFFICE. THE first is only a few inches tall. A collection of all the legislation passed by Congress in 2013, it contains about eight hundred pages. The second tower, which is eleven feet tall, is a collection of regulations proposed and adopted by federal agencies in 2013. It contains about eighty thousand pages.”
― Mike Lee, Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document