Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Santorum rejects the idea that the state should not limit individual passions, arguing that such limits are necessary to avoid negative societal consequences.
In plain terms
The state must limit what people want or do because letting them do anything hurts society.
What can you take from it?
Government restrictions on individual desires are necessary for social order.

Where it applies

  • policy debates
  • constitutional discussions
  • public morals

Putting it to work

  • arguing for regulation
  • defending government authority

Questions to consider

  • Should the state limit individual wants?
  • What consequences justify limiting freedom?

Another view

It offers no specific examples of consequences to justify state intervention in desires.

More from Rick Santorum

  1. If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, …

    Permalink to quote #5
  2. As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else. It's being drawn to Iraq. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I …

    Permalink to quote #4
  3. I mean people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings [...] There may be a need to look at tougher …

    Permalink to quote #3

Related quotes

  1. The individual who refuses to defend his rights when called by his Government, deserves to be a slave, and must be punished as an enemy of his country and frie…

    Andrew JacksonAndrew Jackson quote #1
  2. If Americans support abortion, let's vote. . . Just this past term, in Stenberg vs. Carhart, the court expanded the apocryphal abortion right to an all-new rig…

    Ann CoulterAnn Coulter quote #3
  3. Political agitation, by the passions it arouses or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimulate men to the violation of the law. Detestation of existing…

    Learned HandLearned Hand quote #5