Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 146 of Thomas Sowell’s 1999 book, The Quest for Cosmic Justice [original emphasis]:

But unlike the French revolution or the Bolshevik revolution, for example, the American revolution and its resulting constitution did not center on a change in the cast of characters in high places or on a change in their political language or immediate policy agenda. Its central concern was in establishing new processes by which whoever occupied the places of power could be restrained and replaced. In short, it did not pretend to have a doctrinal truth but instead implied a deep skepticism that anyone had either a monopoly on doctrinal truth or such moral or intellectual rectitude as to be exempt from constraints, condemnations, or dismissals from office by their fellow men.

DBx: Yes. But we might also say that the one doctrinal truth that the American founders did believe in – the core truth declared in the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence – is that the best society is one in which the power of one person or group of persons to coercively impose his or its will upon other persons or groups of persons should be kept to a minimum.