Christopher Brooks

Author, teacher, lover of fair and balanced debate

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

"The first governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it."

James Wilson, "The Study of Law," LECTURES ON LAW, vol. 1, p. 75.

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

"Ideological certainty easily degenerates into an insistence upon ignorance.”

- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

@JoshPhillipsPhD @nmosvick It was certainly worth the trip!

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

#OTD in 2019
"Public emotion, though indispensable, works best when informed by good information, mature judgment and honest leadership."

-#LanceMarrow #WSJopinion

Spot on.

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

“[H]ow widely men differ in their opinions . . . [E]very man has an equal pretension to assert his own, I am satisfied that anything nearer to perfection could not have been accomplished. . .it is the best form of government which has ever been offered to the world.” James Wilson

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

“To exercise the intellect, the Prince should read histories, and study there the actions of illustrious men.”

Machiavelli

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

"There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.”

Nietzsche

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

"The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics." ― Thomas Sowell

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

"Freedom is a need of the soul, and nothing else. It is in striving toward God that the soul strives continually after a condition of freedom. God alone is the inciter and guarantor of freedom. He is the only guarantor."

Whittaker Chambers, A Letter to My Children

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

16 years ago this week...

"[S]ome fear that it has become the Shangri-La of class-action litigation for lawyers representing those allegedly cheated in foreign securities markets."

Justice Antonin Scalia, Morrison v. NAB (2009)

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

"For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears."

Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

" . . . in every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and by the Leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same Principle lives in us."

- Phillis Wheatley, 1774

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

Re: a comment on useless averages on unemployment across the eurozone: “When I was a CFO, if anyone used averages I told them the average of a guy freezing to death and another guy burning to death was a comfortable guy. Most were smart enough to only hear that once.” Politico

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

"Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow."

-Elias Boudinot (1740-1821)

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

"[W]hen you become a judge, you fiercely defend only one client — the law."

Neil Gorsuch

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistance. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."

James Wilson (1742-98)

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

“The Declaration of Independence . . . is not a fable as some of our modern theorists would us believe, but the all-embracing formula of personal rights on which our government is based.”

Legal brief of Homer Plessy for Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

[Dr. Nicholas Mosvick @nmosvick]

A follow-up post on James Burnham's "Managerial Revolution"--considering some of Burnham's predictions in the classic work which have proven incredibly prescient.

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[Christopher Brooks @BurgHistProf]

@nmosvick That phrasing did indeed seem to ignore the progress made in, for example, wage equality.