Four innate sentiments dispose people to a universal moral sense. These are sympathy, fairness, self-control and duty.
James Q. WilsonMany, if not most, of the difficulties we experience in dealing with government agencies arise from the agencies being part of a fragmented and open political systemโฆThe central feature of the American constitutional systemโthe separation of powersโexacerbates many of these problems. The governments of the US were not designed to be efficient or powerful, but to be tolerable and malleable. Those who designed these arrangements always assumed that the federal government would exercise few and limited powers.
James Q. WilsonIf a radical devolution of powers was possible, it would have been done before. The assumption of states' rights is gone. There's no support for it in the Supreme Court and there's no support for it in public opinion.
James Q. WilsonA particular rule that seems to make sense in the individual case makes no sense when it is made a universal rule and applied to all cases. It makes no sense because it fails to take into account the connection between one broken window left untended and a thousand broken windows.
James Q. Wilson