We have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Vidal argues that the nation no longer follows the law, and the Bill of Rights is now just a symbol.
- In plain terms
- He believes legal protections are dead while the government looks like a formal structure.
- What can you take from it?
- Legal rights can become empty symbols without enforcement.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Are rights symbols or realities?
- How is the law enforced?
Another view
The Bill of Rights still has legal power despite rhetorical criticisms.
More from Gore Vidal
Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.
Permalink to quote #42 Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
Permalink to quote #44 Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.
Permalink to quote #41
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