“History shows that, more often than not, loss of sovereignty leads to liberalisation imposed in the interests of the powerful.”

Now that’s so deep in history that there’s no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.

NATO was constructed on the – with the reason, whether one believes it or not, that it was going to defend Western Europe from Russian assault.

The polls show that concern over inequality among the general public rose pretty sharply after the Occupy movement started, very probably as a consequence. And there are other policy issues that came to the fore, which are significant.

It’s a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can’t get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt, it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

I don’t join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn’t have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven – that’s none of my business, ultimately. I won’t lecture her on the philosophy of science.

A war with Pakistan would be an utter disaster.

Remember, weapons of mass destruction don’t mean missiles.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category.

Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.

If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.

Immediately, the United States and Israel set about separating the two and making sure that they would not be united.

Two days after the Boston marathon bombings, there was a drone strike in Yemen attacking a peaceful village, which killed a target who could very easily have been apprehended. But, of course, it is just easier to terrorise people.

Being imposes some kind of obligation to find out what’s going on.

I have never seen fundamental improvements imposed from the top by ordinances and laws.

Here’s a nation, one of the founding pillars was freedom of speech and freedom of expression. And yet, we have imposed upon people restrictions on what they can say, on what they can think. And the media is the largest proponent of this, crucifying people who say things really quite innocently.

Rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person’s concept of his relation to the cosmos.

Sacredness of human life! The world has never believed it! It has been with life that we settled our quarrels, won wives, gold and land, defended ideas, imposed religions.

The U.S. – the idea that the U.S. has introduced and imposed principles of international law, that’s hardly even a joke.

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.