Generally the impulse to find justice through punitive measures can be a kind of quicksand. What James Whitman, the scholar I cite in the chapter of my book, talks about as an urge to level down, I think you see that everywhere. We're going to be a punitive society, so we might as well level out that punitiveness. Bankers and college swim stars and everyone face that same kind of wrath.

Chris Hayes

Categorized in : Thinking Book College

If you want to defend torture, well then go ahead. But please spare me any sermons about the law ever again.

Chris Hayes

torture law want

We cannot have a just society that applies the principle of accountability to the powerless and the principle of forgiveness to the powerful. This is the America in which we currently reside.

Chris Hayes

accountability powerful america

We now operate in a world in which we can assume neither competence nor good faith from the authorities. The consequences of this simple, devastating realization define American life.

Chris Hayes

realization simple world

I think politically there is less juice to be squeezed out of that orange in the Democratic side. I mean, my feeling is your median Democratic voter, they`re angry at the banks or they`re not psyched about companies that outsource and things like that.

Chris Hayes

orange mean thinking

The issue of the American justice system is so much broader than any one party, or any area of the country, or any one policy, because the totality of it is that it's driven by the underlying politics. The underlying politics are white fear and wrath and punishment. And that's what tends to be consistent. As I say in the book, that's the magnet that's drawing the iron filings into alignment. That's the thing that's powering all of it. The gravitational pole of those politics operate on each of these disparate little actors.

Chris Hayes

party country book

Donald Trump is not going anywhere. And we see as calculated as these are, he has a knack for telling a certain segment of a base what they want.

Chris Hayes

knack trump want

Climate change is the biggest governing challenge we face. It's the biggest governing challenge I think we've ever faced.

Chris Hayes

climate challenges thinking

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz opened up a new line of attack on Donald Trump, targeting his involvement in Trump University, a for-profit, non-licensed now defunct institution which triggered lawsuits from individuals who claimed they were defrauded by him, as well as a suit alleging fraud from New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman.

Chris Hayes

suits lines new-york

I got my start in lefty journalism as a labor reporter at 'In These Times', and it's in my blood.

Chris Hayes

lefties journalism blood

The backlash to [Sarah] Palin`s comments was swift, with veterans and veterans` groups criticizing the apparent politicization of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Chris Hayes

veteran groups stress

I can cite a chapter and verse of literature at the times saying Italians don`t speak our language, these folks coming from other places - it sounds identical to what you are saying about Muslims now. It really does.

Chris Hayes

literature sound doe

Trump University is just one of the many lines of attack that were opened up last night, giving a preview of what`s to come in the general if [Donald] Trump is indeed the Republican nominee.

Chris Hayes

lines giving night

Obviously it's easier to grow faster when you are a less developed country than when you are where the U.S. is.

Chris Hayes

easier faster country

My disposition as a human being is kind of a go-along-to-get-along person. I tend to trust authority.

Chris Hayes

disposition kind authority

It's very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the words 'heroes.' I feel ... uncomfortable about the word hero because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war.

Chris Hayes

valor hero war

Something changed between the two men, namely [Donald ] Trump started slinging mud on Twitter about [Ted] Cruz`s wife, Heidi, including a mean comparing her looks unfavourably to his own.

Chris Hayes

men two mean

I feel uncomfortable about the word hero because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don't want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that's fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I'm wrong about that.

Chris Hayes

hero memories war

Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up. In other words: 'Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.'

Chris Hayes

oligarchy able way

Every sentence stands on its own. Whether that's fair or not, that's kind of the way it is.

Chris Hayes

sentences kind way

[Donald Trump] spreading preposterous rumors that [Ted] Cruz`s father had connections to Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of JFK. That put a bit of a damper on the bromance ultimately culminating in Cruz`s epic non-endorsement at the Republican convention.

Chris Hayes

rumor epic father