Aging nations have arteries clogged with obsolete laws, slowing blood flow and preventing oxygen from reaching all parts of the body politic. Physicians call this arteriosclerosis; historians see decline of empire.
A constitution, in the American sense of the word, is a written instrument by which the fundamental powers of the government are established, limited, and defined, and by which these powers are distributed among several departments, for their more safe and useful exercise, for the benefit of the body politic.
National politics and elections are dominated by emotions, by lack of self-confidence, by fear of the other, by insecurity, by infection of the body politic by the virus of victimhood.
Law and order are the medicine of the body politic and when the body politic gets sick, medicine must be administered.
The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.
I am an opponent of war and of war preparations and an opponent of universal military training and conscription; but entirely apart from that issue, I hold that segregation in any part of the body politic is an act of slavery and an act of war.
Compromise, contrary to popular opinion, does not mean selling out one's principles. Compromise means working out differences to forge a solution which fits the diversity of the body politic.
I want to make sure that, not only in the Republican Party but in the body politic as a whole, people are aware of threats that remain to the United States.
My title is intended to suggest that the community of scientists is organized in a way which resembles certain features of a body politic and works according to economic principles similar to those by which the production of material goods is regulated.
We like to think the best of ourselves. We like to believe we always say and do the right things. We like to believe our humor is always politic. We like to believe we harbor no prejudices. At least, that's the impression we give when we are so quick to condemn those whose weaknesses and failures are subjected to the harsh light of the Internet.