Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Under a democratic form of government, the people elect legislators and ministers to fulfil their policies. The role of the ministers is to give directions. The role of the bureaucracy is to implement those directions. If those who have to do the implementation are on strike, no policies can actually be implemented.
Democracy demands that judges confine themselves to a narrow sphere of influence - that is why the late Alexander Bickel called the judiciary the 'Least Dangerous Branch.' In a world governed by a proper conception of their role, judges don't play at being legislators - they leave that job to our elected representatives.
We continue to see our elected officials working extra hard to create a 'good climate for business' that leads to disinvestment in public infrastructure and tax incentives to the detriment of cities, while enriching private business and further entrenching poverty. And our cities are told by legislators to use their bootstraps to survive.
In 2006, I appeared before a House subcommittee considering real estate reform. It was like visiting the capital for the 'Hunger Games' as an outsider in a glamorous and byzantine fairy tale: I couldn't believe how beautiful all the congressional aides were, and I never understood the system of bells and alarms warning legislators to vote.
For me, in trying to talk about something like policing, it's such a huge issue, and it's an issue that's very local and very personalized to communities, to cities, to legislators, and so, in that way, I think as we started looking into talking about policing, the thing that you realize is that you can't paint everything with the same brush.
There's this idea of America that some people have to win and some have to lose, so certain things are in place to make this happen. Some people have to be the next legislators and political elites, and some have to fill the prisons and work in McDonald's. That's how America works. It's a machine which needs people up top and people down low.
Concerned about re-election, interest-group reactions, the media, or fundraising, many legislators have found it in their interest to refuse to cooperate with members of the opposing party - or to treat them as enemies in some kind of war, in which the whole point is to defeat and humiliate them. But the American people have been the real losers.