You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of considering potential negative outcomes of legislation rather than just its intended benefits.
Lyndon B. Johnson's quote highlights a critical perspective on the evaluation of legislation. It suggests that one should assess laws not only based on their expected advantages when implemented correctly, but more importantly, on the possible damages they could inflict if executed poorly. This approach encourages a more cautious and responsible scrutiny of laws, prioritizing the prevention of harm over the optimism of benefits.
In practice
This quote can be used by lawmakers during debates to emphasize the importance of thorough consideration of potential risks.
You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.
Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time.
We do this in order to slow down aggression. We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Vietnam who have bravely born this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties. And we do this to convince the leaders of North Vietnam-and all who seek to share their conquest-of a simple fact: We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.
So far are we generally from thinking what we often say of the shortness of life, that at the time when it is necessarily shortest we form projects which we delay to execute, indulge such expectations as nothing but along train of events can gratify, and suffer those passions to gain upon us which are only excusable in the prime of life.
If government is to serve any purpose it is to do for others what they are unable to do for themselves.
I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.
Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.
Even were the workers able to have their own representatives, for which our good Socialist politicians are clamoring, what chances are there for their honesty and good faith?
Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention. Most of all, democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn't matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some narrow interest.
You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you'll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again... my asset values will disappear, my apartments will be worth a fraction of what they were, my ministers' jobs will be in peril, their security will be at risk and their women will become maids in other people's countries, foreign workers.
I didn't have any personal goals when I came, but after being in politics - after seeing people, their difficulties, their wants - I think our goal has to be to eliminate poverty from India.
The invisible government tends to be concentrated in the hands of the few because of the expense of manipulating the social machinery which controls the opinions and habits of the masses. To advertise on a scale which will reach fifty million persons is expensive. To reach and persuade the group leaders who dictate the public's thoughts and actions is likewise expensive.
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