It is of first importance that the military be subordinate to civilian government

Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another.

The idea of public reason isn't about the right answers to all these questions, but about the kinds of reasons that they ought to be answered by.

The hazards of the generalized prisoner's dilemma are removed by the match between the right and the good.

The concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role.

A political conception just applies to the basic structure of a society, its institutions, constitutional essentials, matters of basic justice and property, and so on.

If you compare the United States with Europe, my view is that what happened in Europe is that the church became deeply distrusted by people, because it sided with the monarchs. It instituted the Inquisition and became part of the repressive state apparatus. That never happened here. We don't have that history.