Benjamin Franklin

"History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy."

--Benjamin Franklin

Oppose!

"Senate Republicans must take a stand and vocally oppose this nomination, not on the basis of partisan politics, but in defense of the rule of law and the proper role of the judiciary, principles the president is only pretending to honor."
--columnist David Limbaugh

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Philosophy

"Sotomayor believes that law, like beauty, is entirely in the eye of the beholder. It is therefore of vital importance which beholders are sitting on the Supreme Court. Judicial philosophy is irrelevant, in this view; the only true judicial philosophy is personal philosophy."
--columnist Ben Shapiro

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Not the Metric We Should Use

"If you were going to have open heart surgery, would you want to be operated on by a surgeon who was chosen because he had to struggle to get where he is or by the best surgeon you could find-- even if he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had every advantage that money and social position could offer?"
--economist Thomas Sowell

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Hurdles?

"Since when did securing a Supreme Court seat become a high hurdles contest? The White House and Democrats have turned Second Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination into a personal Olympic event. Pay no attention to her jurisprudence. She grew up in a Bronx public housing project. She was diagnosed with childhood diabetes at 8. Her father died a year later. And, oh, by the way, did you hear that she was poor? It's a 'compelling personal story,' as we heard 20,956 times on Tuesday."
--columnist Michelle Malkin

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The Oath?

"Why make this complicated? President Obama prefers Supreme Court justices who will violate their oath of office. And he hopes Sonia Sotomayor is the right Hispanic woman for the job."
--columnist Jonah Goldberg

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Identity Politics

"[L]ike conventional liberals, [Sonia Sotomayor] embraces identity politics, including the idea of categorical representation: A person is what his or her race, ethnicity, gender or sexual preference is, and members of a particular category can be represented -- understood, empathized with -- only by persons of the same identity."
--columnist George Will

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Bigotry or Empathy?

"In making Sonia Sotomayor his first nominee for the Supreme Court yesterday, President Obama appears to have found the ideal match for his view that personal experience and cultural identity are the better part of judicial wisdom. This isn't a jurisprudence that the Founders would recognize, but it is the creative view that has dominated the law schools since the 1970s and from which both the President and Judge Sotomayor emerged. In the President's now-famous word, judging should be shaped by 'empathy' as much or more than by reason. In this sense, Judge Sotomayor would be a thoroughly modern Justice, one for whom the law is a voyage of personal identity. 'Experience being tested by obstacles and barriers, by hardship and misfortune; experience insisting, persisting, and ultimately overcoming those barriers,' Mr. Obama said yesterday in introducing Ms. Sotomayor. 'It is experience that can give a person a common touch of compassion; an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live. And that is why it is a necessary ingredient in the kind of Justice we need on the Supreme Court.' ...[Sotomayor] is a judge steeped in the legal school of identity politics. This is not the same as taking justifiable pride in being the first Puerto Rican-American nominated to the Court, as both she and the President did yesterday. ... Judge Sotomayor's belief is that a 'Latina woman' is by definition a superior judge to a 'white male' because she has had more 'richness' in her struggle. The danger inherent in this judicial view is that the law isn't what the Constitution says but whatever the judge in the 'richness' of her experience comes to believe it should be. ... As the first nominee of a popular President and with 59 Democrats in the Senate, Judge Sotomayor is likely to be confirmed barring some major blunder. But Republicans can use the process as a teaching moment, not to tear down Ms. Sotomayor on personal issues the way the left tried with Justices Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, but to educate Americans about the proper role of the judiciary and to explore whether Judge Sotomayor's Constitutional principles are as free-form as they seem from her record."
--The Wall Street Journal

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Consider the Audience

"The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum."
--English cleric and writer Charles Colton (1780-1832)

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Decay

"The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded."
--French political philosopher C. L. De Montesquieu (1689-1755)

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The Rule of The Brute

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
--author Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

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Judges...

"[J]udges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men."
--John Adams

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They're Watching

"The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it."
--James Madison, letter to James Monroe, December 16, 1824

Forever Vigilant

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."
--George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

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May We Never Forget 5

"I have no illusions about what little I can add now to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them. Yet, we must try to honor them -- not for their sakes alone, but for our own. And if words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and to final sacrifice. Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough: The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper."
--Ronald Reagan

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May We Never Forget 4

"These Endured All And Gave All That
Justice Among Nations Might Prevail and
That Mankind Might Enjoy Freedom and
Inherit Peace."
--inscription on a memorial at the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach

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May We Never Forget 3

"Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men."
--Pericles

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May We Never Forget

"No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave."
--Calvin Coolidge

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May We Never Forget 2

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
--Sir Winston Churchill

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May We Never Forget

"[L]et us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us re-consecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain." --Dwight Eisenhower

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Duty

"Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."
--John Adams, letter to Benjamin Rush, April 18, 1808

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Cost

"I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all the means...."
--John Adams

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Principles, Not Sentiment

"There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.... In fact it is only reestablishing under another name and a more specious form, force as the measure of right...."
--James Madison, letter to James Monroe, October 5, 1786

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Pressure...

"Pressure makes diamonds."
--General George S. Patton

Thinking

"If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking!"
--General George S. Patton

Only Work

"The world ain't going to be saved by nobody's scheme. It's fellows with schemes that got us into this mess. Plans can get you into things, but you got to work your way out."
--American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

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There Has NEVER Been ANY Constitutional Authority!!!

"Every measure which establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives to it an administrative form creates thereby a class unproductive and idle, living at the expense of the class which is industrious and given to work."
--French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

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All Governments Limit Liberty

"Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it."
--President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)

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The Automobile Nazi

"Barack Obama was not the candidate in last year's presidential race who reminded us the most of a used-car salesman -- that distinction went to his eventual running mate, Joe Biden. Since taking office, though, President Obama has sounded increasingly like the nation's car-salesman-in-chief. Announcing his plan to instate strict caps on auto emissions -- a move his own administration says could add around $2,000 to the cost of each new vehicle by 2016 -- Obama said, 'If you buy a car, your investment in a more fuel-efficient vehicle as a result of this standard will pay off in just three years.' Obama's hard sell -- 'This is a winning proposition for folks looking to buy a car' -- is premised on some sketchy math. For one thing, experts outside the administration say the added per-vehicle cost could go as high as $8,000. You can't save money getting more miles to the gallon if you can't afford the car in the first place. For another, those estimated savings are based on the administration's ability to predict gas prices seven to ten years into the future. ... Then there is the evidence that tighter fuel-economy standards yield auto fleets that are more dangerous in accidents. The easiest way to make a car more fuel efficient is to make it lighter. Researchers from institutions as diverse as the Brookings Institution, the National Research Council, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have shown that after the first federal fuel-economy standards went into effect in the 1970s, cars got lighter and traffic fatalities increased as a result. The National Research Council study found that federal fuel-economy standards contribute to about 2,000 deaths per year. The Rose Garden ceremony during which Obama announced his plan featured the participation of auto-industry leaders, who just a few years ago were adamantly opposed to stricter standards on the grounds that compliance would be too costly. A few nationalizations later, everyone is on board. ... This should serve as a lesson on the dangers of what the Troubled Asset Relief Program has become. The Democrats control the White House and both houses of Congress. Now, thanks to the transformation of TARP into an all-purpose slush fund, they control a growing slice of the private sector, too."
--National Review

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So There's Still Some Sanity In South Carolina!

"We live in an era in which conservatives have not effectively outlined the proper and limited role of government, and as a direct consequence of our failures, more and more of our citizens are turning to an ever-encroaching government in times of crisis. Yet to allow the balance of power in this nation to continue to shift further and further toward government and thus further and further from liberty is to surrender the very thing that makes America so historically unique."
--South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford

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ENOUGH ALREADY!

"Just how much government debt does a president have to endorse before he's labeled 'irresponsible'"?
--columnist Robert Samuelson

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If Medicare Is Bankrupt, How's this Supposed To Work?

"Does anybody really believe that adding 50 million people to the public health-care rolls will not cost the government more money? About $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion more? At least. So let's be serious when evaluating President Obama's goal of universal health care, and the idea that it's a cost-cutter. Can't happen. Won't happen. Costs are going to explode."
--economist Larry Kudlow

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Should The Same People Who Run The Postal Service Be Allowed to Run Our Healthcare?

"The Obama administration is bent on becoming a major player in -- if not taking over entirely -- America's health-care, automobile and banking industries. Before that happens, it might be a good idea to look at the government's track record in running economic enterprises. It is terrible."
--author John Steele Gordon

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Magical Thinking

"So far, the Obama administration has yet to lay out its magical thinking on how the homegrown auto makers are to become 'viable' when required to subordinate every auto attribute that consumers find desirable in favor of achieving a passenger-car average of 39 miles per gallon by 2016. Nonetheless the answer has quietly seeped out: Taxpayers will write $5,000 or $7,000 rebate checks to other taxpayers to bribe them to buy hybrids and plug-ins at a price that lets Detroit claim it's earning a 'profit' on its Obamamobiles."
--columnist Holman Jenkins Jr

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Where Does It End?

"At some point someone is going to file a suit in Federal court asking for clarity as to just where in the U.S. Constitution it is provided that the Executive Branch can buy a bankrupt car company." --political analyst Rich Galen

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Necessary Evil

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." --Thomas Paine

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Once it was...

"This Government, the offspring of your own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support."
--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

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Freedom and Happiness (Legitimate)

"The freedom and happiness of man...[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810

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Faith vs. Secularism

"Secularism is a euphemism for a set of beliefs that are the antithesis of faith. Boiled down to its basic elements, secularism is man's subordination of morality to his own earthly judgments, scientific and otherwise. ...[T]he secularist catechism holds that truth is subjective, relative or contextual; because it demands that rationality can solve moral and ontological questions about man's nature, that discrimination is the greatest of all evils and that patriotism is the only social disease that isn't sexually-transmitted. ... Obama's thesis ... is that our moral code can exist in the absence of a religious foundation. ...[S]ecularism -- and its cousin, multiculturalism -- are the primary causes of the weakening of western society at a most dangerous time in history. The weakness results ... because secularism turns the bedrock of western society -- the moral code derived from Judeo-Christian faith -- into sand. By divorcing our societies from faith, we render every man's morality equal to every other's, and thus make them all valueless. When President Obama says we are a nation bound by ideals and values, he postulates an impossibility: where do those secular ideals and values come from if -- as liberal dogma requires -- every man makes up his own?"
--Human Events editor Jed Babbin

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Tearing the Fabric

"When Barack Obama speaks at an American university, he does not provide a different perspective. He preaches to the liberal choir. And I am afraid that most of today's Catholic universities are no exception. ... Contrary to providing diversity of opinion, by inviting Barack Obama, [Notre Dame University president] Father Jenkins really just played to his audience. True leadership would have been to invite a speaker who would inspire this young audience to take seriously the values of their Catholic tradition. ... Where can a parent send their son or daughter to get educated and not be indoctrinated with liberal boilerplate? Catholic universities were supposed to serve this purpose. But it's clear that they, too, have been swept into the liberal tsunami that has engulfed America. Ironically, Father Jenkins states in his letter that Notre Dame's invitation to Obama is 'not a political statement or an endorsement of policy.' He then expresses admiration for the president's views on 'expanding health care, alleviating poverty, and building peace through diplomacy.' Does Father Jenkins not even understand what a 'political statement' is? Unfortunately, Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama has only contributed to the moral ambiguity tearing at our nation's fabric."
--columnist Star Parker

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Freedom of Choice or Slavery

"The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care, which the socialists promise us and which can be obtained only by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice; it must be the freedom of our economic activity which, with the right of choice, inevitably also carries the risk and the responsibility of that right."
--economist Friedrich August Hayek (1899-1992)

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NO CONTROL: $3,600,000,000,000.00

"Republicans and conservatives are trying to grapple with the Obama administration's $3,600,000,000,000 federal budget -- let's include the zeroes rather than use the trivializing abbreviation $3.6 trillion -- and the larger-than-previously-projected $1,841,000,000,000 budget deficit. Political arguments are usually won not by numbers but by moral principles. And conservatives, banished by voters from high office, are having a hard time agreeing on a moral case. ... For the policies of the Obama administration are not designed to shelter and nourish what Edmund Burke called the 'little platoons.' They are designed to subject them to what [Alexis de] Tocqueville called 'soft despotism,' which he identified as the natural tendency and potentially fatal weakness of American democracy. Our would-be soft despots are offering Americans money and the promise of security against economic distress. The vastly increased cost of government will nonetheless nearly leave half of households free from the burden of paying federal income tax and eligible for occasional rebates. ... The policy proposals of the Obama administration are portrayed ... as addressing the concerns of middle-income people uneasy about the workings of capitalism. But they are not aimed at giving these people more control and choices over the course of their lives -- rather the contrary."
--columnist Michael Barone

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"Consent of the Governed"

"We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed." --Ronald Reagan

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Corruption

"The Troubled Assets Relief Program, which has not yet been used for its supposed purpose (to purchase such assets from banks), has been the instrument of the administration's adventure in the automobile industry. TARP's $700 billion, like much of the supposed 'stimulus' money, is a slush fund the executive branch can use as it pleases. This is as lawless as it would be for Congress to say to the IRS: We need $3.5 trillion to run the government next year, so raise it however you wish -- from whomever, at whatever rates you think suitable. Don't bother us with details. ... The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of 'economic planning' and 'social justice' that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration's central activity -- the political allocation of wealth and opportunity -- is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption."
--columnist George Will

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"The Budding Tyrant"

"[T]he budding tyrant identifies personal insults as insults to the country. ...Obama and his followers demonize anyone who challenges the Obama agenda as unpatriotic traitors to the country. ...Obama's entire persona is geared toward his personal elevation. His website, BarackObama.com, continues to run apace despite his elevation to the presidency -- only now, the focus of the website is 'Organizing for America.' The website leads off with this Leninesque quote from Obama: 'I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington ... I'm asking you to believe in yours.' ... Despite certain early warning signs of incipient tyranny, the Obama administration is ... still bound by the dictates of the republican electoral system. We must guard those dictates especially carefully, however, in a time when the Cult of Obama casually suggests that disagreement with the Great Leader is tantamount to anti-Americanism."
--columnist Ben Shapiro

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Abuse of Power 3

"As a tool for understanding the thinking of Obama, [Saul] Alinsky's most famous book, Rules for Radicals, is simultaneously edifying and worrisome. Some passages make Machiavelli's Prince read like a Sesame Street picture book on manners. After Obama took office, the pundit class found itself debating the ideology and sensibility of the new president -- an indication of how scarcely the media had bothered to examine him beforehand. But after 100 days, few observers can say that Obama hasn't surprised them with at least one call. ... Obama is a pragmatist, but a pragmatist as understood by Alinsky: One who applies pragmatism to achieving and keeping power. ... Moderates thought they were electing a moderate; liberals thought they were electing a liberal. Both camps were wrong. Ideology does not have the final say in Obama's decision-making; an Alinskyite's core principle is to take any action that expands his power and to avoid any action that risks his power. As conservatives size up their new foe, they ought to remember: It's not about liberalism. It's about power. Obama will jettison anything that costs him power, and do anything that enhances it.... It's not about the policies or the politics, and it's certainly not about the principles. It's about power, and it has been for a long time."
--columnist Jim Geraghty

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Abuse of Power 2

"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired."
--Alexander Hamilton

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Abuse of Power

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."
--James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, December 2, 1829

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Time to Prune

"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife."
--Thomas Jefferson

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Necessary Evil

"It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect."
--James Madison, to an unidentified correspondent, 1833

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Don't Panic!

"Men, to act with vigour and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They must not be hurried on to their conclusions by the passions, or the fears of the multitude. They must deliberate, as well as resolve."
--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, January 6, 1833

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How Stupid Do You Think We Are?

Wrong again:
"[I]f they lost their heart in the 1980s, and they lost their mind in the 1990s, what we've seen in the 2000s is Republicans losing their image, and they lost it on national security."
--Newsweek's Richard Wolffe

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How Stupid Do You Think We Are?

Wrong on so many levels: "Republicans actually have plenty of ideas. That's the problem. The party's ideas -- about economic issues, social issues and just about everything else -- are not popular ideas. They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative base. ... A hard-right agenda of slashing taxes for the investor class, protecting marriage from gays, blocking universal health insurance and extolling the glories of waterboarding produces terrific ratings for Rush Limbaugh, but it's not a majority agenda."
--Time magazine's Michael Grunwald

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Not For The Timid

"Conservatism is the political belief that best mirrors human nature across time and space; but because its precepts are sometimes tragic and demand responsibility rather than ever-expanding rights, it requires adept communicators -- not triangulators and appeasers whose pleasure is only for the moment."
--columnist Victor Davis Hanson

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I thought desent was the purest form of Patriotism!

"If you attack President Barack Obama's policies, are you attacking America? According to today's left, the answer is yes: Barack Obama is America. And opposition to Barack Obama or any of his policies is therefore, by definition, anti-American."
--columnist Ben Shapiro

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What al Qieda could not do with 4 airliners and thousands of gallons of jet fuel, B. Hussein Obama has done with voter approval!

"Proponents of today's world-turned-upside-down economic policies say the policies might seem wrong but really are boldly modern in their rejection of markets in favor of pervasive government intervention in economic life. Hence New York, which until eight months ago was the financial capital of the world, is no longer even the financial capital of the United States. Washington is."
--columnist George Will

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Proper Planning Prevents Government Theft? Who knew?!

"Ford has about $26 billion in automotive debt -- about the same as GM's $27 billion. Ford's debt is secured by its assets. And secured lenders must be repaid -- unless they happen to be Chrysler lenders and get clipped by a company bankruptcy plan that's backed by President Obama. So Ford is like a homeowner who planned prudently and can pay his mortgage, while his spendthrift neighbors get their mortgage reduced by some new federal program."
--Wall Street Journal Detroit bureau chief Paul Ingrassia
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"The Rule of Law"

"The rule of law, not of men -- an ideal tracing back to the ancient Greeks and well-known to our Founding Fathers -- is the animating principle of the American experiment. While the rest of the world in 1787 was governed by the whims of kings and dukes, the U.S. Constitution was established to circumstance arbitrary government power. It would do so by establishing clear rules, equally applied to the powerful and the weak. Fleecing lenders to pay off politically powerful interests, or governmental threats to reputation and business from a failure to toe a political line? We might expect this behavior from a Hugo Chavez. But it would never happen here, right? Until Chrysler."
--George Mason University law professor Todd Sewage
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"Gangster Government"

"Give President Obama credit -- he at least made the proverbial offer Chrysler's secured creditors couldn't refuse. The way Obama strong-armed creditors who rightfully expected to be treated justly under the law was right out of Juan Peron's playbook. Like the Argentinian strong man, Obama muscled the owners and creditors out of a productive private company and gave it to union leaders, who will then fill his campaign coffers in gratitude for his generosity. The Examiner's Michael Barone -- who has forgotten more about American government and politics than most Washington political experts know -- was correct to dub Obama's Chrysler heist 'an episode of Gangster Government.' Forget what anybody in the White House or what is left of the Chrysler executive corps claims to the contrary because the UAW effectively owns the company now, holding 55 percent of its stock. True, the union doesn't get an explicit controlling majority of the board of directors, but who needs that when you've got the White House guaranteeing your work and the U.S. Treasury Department making sure you never have to worry about the bottom line. ... Contrasting mightily with the Pennsylvania Avenue Gang's thuggery is the quiet confidence of Ford Motor Company's president and CEO, Allan Mullaly. He had the foresight three years ago to strengthen his firm's cash and credit reserves in anticipation of the inevitable decline of auto sales. ... When GM and Chrysler headed hats-in-hand to Washington last fall, Mullaly said Ford didn't want a bailout and then watched quietly as his two cross-town rivals committed corporate suicide. Now Ford is positioned strongly to be the last great American car company. With a guy like that at the helm, it's enough to make people who love American free enterprise go out and buy a new Ford."
--The Washington Examiner

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"Just Powers from the Consent of The Governed"

"There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."
--American author and poet Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

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The Truth About The Truth

"Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it."
--Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204)

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Unchecked Power

"The government of the absolute majority is but the government of the strongest interests; and when not effectively checked, is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised... [To read the Constitution is to realize that] no free system was ever farther removed from the principle that the absolute majority, without check or limitation, ought to govern."
--American statesman John C. Calhoun (1782-1850)

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Chaos, Fear & Panic (Oh my!)

"When in trouble, fear or doubt:
Run in circles, scream, and shout."
-Unknown

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."
-Rudyard Kipling

Entropy

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."
--Thomas Jefferson

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The Tenacity of Freedom

"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."
--Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791

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Promotion of Wealth

"To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted."
--Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, December 1791

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama,

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaugh's, Hannity's, O'Rellly's and Beck's who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

(Posted to Yahoo_Groups)

LISTEN TO ME!

"I want the government to get the hell out of our way and let us act like the free people our founding fathers wanted us to be, and not like subjects of an all-knowing, all-powerful federal government. The listening tour is nothing but Republican gimmickry. The reality is that had they been listening over the past four years of the Bush presidency they would have seen the disaster of 2006 coming and they would have seen the catastrophe of 2008 coming. Instead, they turned a deaf ear to the Republican conservatives not only on Capitol Hill, but to those out across America. They lost in 2006 and 2008 because they stopped listening to the 'nostalgia' for the conservative principles which guided my dad's administrations ...[and] made us the wealthiest and most-powerful nation in world history. The lesson they taught was that you don't win elections by saying 'me too,' and trying to substitute a Republican version of big-government, wild-spending quasi-socialist agenda for a Democrat big-government, wild-spending quasi-socialist agenda. ... If they start listening, what they'll hear is a demand that the Republican Party get back to the principles and beliefs embodied by Ronald Reagan."
--radio talk-show host Michael Reagan

The Death of American Healthcare

"Listen. That sound of silence? That's what's known as the united Republican response to President Barack Obama's drive to socialize health care. The president has a plan, and he's laid it on the table. The industry groups that once helped Republicans beat HillaryCare are today sitting at that table. Unions are mobilized. A liberal umbrella group, Health Care for American Now, is spending $40 million to get a 'public option,' a new federal entitlement that would kill off private insurance. Democrats passed a budget blueprint that will allow them to cram through that 'public option' with just 51 votes. Republicans? They're trying to figure out what they think. Well, not all of them. [Last] week I ended up in the office of Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, where the doctor was hosting North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr. The duo is, for the second time, crafting a comprehensive reform that would lower costs, cover the uninsured, and put Americans in control of their health care. And while the senators decline to talk GOP politics, their bill raises the multitrillion-dollar question: Will the party have the nerve or sense to coalesce behind some such conservative alternative to the Democratic product? They'd better, because the days of Republicans winning these battles solely by spooking Americans are over. Phil Gramm, Harry and Louise might have scored with that approach in the 1990s, but the intervening years have brought spiraling costs and public unrest. Americans want a fix. Democrats promise one. The GOP can't tank the public option simply by complaining it will kill private insurance. The party has to finally elucidate how it plans to allow the private market to work."
--columnist Kimberley Strassel

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National Debt, the New Raw Deal

"Then there is the question of national debt. We are now projected to run a record $1.7 trillion deficit -- and may add $9 trillion to our existing $11 trillion in aggregate debt over the next eight years. The president, though, has outlined vast new entitlement programs in health care, education, environmental programs, and infrastructure. The problem, of course, is that we have not earned enough money to pay for any of these additional expenditures. Again, the glamorous ends get the attention, never the mundane means of how to obtain them. Americans became wealthy and strong through unique self-reliance, common sense, and delayed gratification. And we -- or our children -- will soon become poor precisely because we hold on to the romance that producing food and fuel and saving money are icky tasks to be ignored or left to others. Until we change that attitude, we'll keep borrowing and spending on ourselves what we have not yet earned -- all the way to bankruptcy."
--Hoover Institution historian Victor Davis Hanson

Failed Policies of the Past

"Now, where do some of these attacks originate? They're coming from the very people whose past policies, all done in the name of compassion, brought us the current recession. Their policies drove up inflation and interest rates, and their policies stifled incentive, creativity and halted the movement of the poor up the economic ladder. Some of their criticism is perfectly sincere. But let's also understand that some of their criticism comes from those who have a vested interest in a permanent welfare constituency and in government programs that reinforce the dependency of our people. Well, I would suggest that no one should have a vested interest in poverty or dependency, that these tragedies must never be looked at as a source of votes for politicians or paychecks for bureaucrats. They are blights on our society that we must work to eliminate, not institutionalize."
--Ronald Reagan

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Transform? Remake?

"If you met a man who said he would like to 'transform' or 'remake' his wife, would you conclude that he: a) thought very highly of his wife and loved her? Or b) held his wife in rather low esteem and therefore found living her rather difficult? The answer is obvious: Those who wish to remake anything (or anyone) do not think highly of the person or thing they wish to remake. Little is as revealing of Barack Obama's and the left's view of America than their use of the words 'transform' and 'remake' when applied to what they most want to do to America. ... In light of those frequently made criticisms of America, I have often asked representatives of the left why they criticize America so much if they love it so much. 'Precisely because we love America, we criticize it. You criticize that which you love,' is the nearly universal response. But, of course, it isn't true. If you constantly criticize your spouse, for example, it is difficult to imagine that you really do love him or her. And perhaps more important, it is very unlikely that your spouse feels loved. That is why after being routinely described as racist, sexist, imperialist, etc., it is difficult to be able to tell that America is loved by the left. This is not written in order to indict the left, let alone the president, for not loving America. No one can measure another's feelings. Furthermore I do not question the sincerity of anyone who says he loves America. What I question are the actions and rhetoric of those who claim to love America yet want to transform and remake it."
--columnist Dennis Prager

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Why Let the Law Get in the Way?

"Given how congressional leaders have abdicated their responsibilities, perhaps it's not surprising that the secured creditors who challenged the Obama-imposed Chrysler merger deal were too polite to note that the president lacks statutory authority to intervene in the car industry. 'Even assuming that TARP provides the Treasury Department with authority to provide funding to the Debtors,' they said, it is neither fair nor legal to let unsecured creditors such as the United Auto Workers get more of their money back than creditors who by statute have a superior claim. But for a president who tramples on the Constitution in his rush to save companies from the consequences of their own bad decisions, the bankruptcy code is no obstacle."
--columnist Jacob Sullum

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Is this America's First Dictator?

"Barack Obama's vision of America is one in which a President of the United States can fire the head of General Motors, tell banks how to bank, control the medical system and take charge of all sorts of other activities for which neither he nor other politicians have any expertise or experience. The Constitution of the United States gives no president, nor the entire federal government, the authority to do such things. But spending trillions of dollars to bail out all sorts of companies buys the power to tell them how to operate. Appointing judges to the federal courts -- including the Supreme Court -- who believe in expanding the powers of the federal government to make arbitrary decisions, choosing who will be winners and losers in the economy and in the society, is perfectly consistent with a vision of the world where self-confident and self-righteous elites rule according to their own notions, instead of merely governing under the restraints of the Constitution."
--Hoover Institution economist Thomas Sowell

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The Constitution MUST Stand

"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."
--U.S. Senator Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

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Constitutional Laws

"[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution."
--Alexander Hamilton

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Stealing the Future

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." --Thomas Jefferson

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"Debt is allowing the Past to Steal your Future."
--Alex's Dad

No Voluntary Slavery...as least in theory.

"If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave." --John Adams

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Things Unseen

"It gives me a deep, comforting sense that 'things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.'"

-Helen Keller

American Leaders

“The men the American people admire the most extravagantly are the greatest liars. The men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”

-H.L. Mencken

Cynicism, part 1

"The powers of astute observation are often mistaken for cynicism by those who do not possess the powers of astute observation."

-George Bernard Shaw

Cynicism, part 2

Idealism precedes experience; cynicism follows.
-Alex's Dad

Cynicism, part 3

What's the difference between idealism and cynicism?

About 20 years...

-Alex's Dad

Judges

"[J]udges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men." --Johns Adams

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Morality & Virtue

"If individuals be not influenced by moral principles; it is in vain to look for public virtue; it is, therefore, the duty of legislators to enforce, both by precept and example, the utility, as well as the necessity of a strict adherence to the rules of distributive justice."
--James Madison in response to Washington's first Inaugural address, 18 May 1789

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Laws

"In the supposed state of nature, all men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator."
--Samuel Adams, letter to the Legislature of Massachusetts, 17 January 1794

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Minority Subgrouping

“By definition, if we divide ourselves within the organization into subsets or groups, we divide ourselves against ourselves.”
-Alex’s Dad

Free Society

"We may with reverence say, that our Creator designed men for society, because otherwise they cannot be happy. They cannot be happy without freedom; nor free without security; that is, without the absence of fear; nor thus secure, without society. The conclusion is strictly syllogistic—that man cannot be free without society. Of course, they cannot be equally free without society, which freedom produces the greatest happiness."
--John Dickinson, Letters of Fabius, 1788

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The Unchecked Power of The Supreme Court

"This member of the government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all it's origins, but it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would dare not attempt."
-Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Edward Livingston
1825

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Perspective

"It give me a deep, comforting sense that 'things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.'"
-Helen Keller
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Who Works for Who? Part II

"It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust." --James Madison

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Who works for who?

"We have heard of the impious doctrine in the old world, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same doctrine to be revived in the new, in another shape -- that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to the views of political institutions of a different form? It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object."
--James Madison, Federalist No. 45

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Dear Mr. President:

"With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost."

-William Lloyd Garrison

Darkest 100 Days in American History...so far!

"Since January, President Obama and his team have schmoozed, ineffectively, American enemies over allies in almost every corner of the globe. If you're, say, India, following Obama's apology tour even as you watch the Taliban advancing on those Pakistani nukes, would you want to bet the future on American resolve? In Delhi, in Tokyo, in Prague, in Tel Aviv, in Bogota, they've looked at these first 100 days and drawn their own conclusions." --columnist Mark Steyn

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Diminishing Virtue

"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature."
--Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 1788

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States' Rights

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."
--James Madison, Federalist No. 45

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"Me thinks the lady doth protest too much."

The media doth protest too much: "What's disturbing about some of these [tea party] protests and some of the people at these protests is this edge of anger at the government. There is ... a real hostility that is not just politics as usual among some of these people." --CNN's Jeffrey Toobin

"[T]his is a party for Obama bashers. I have to say that this is not entirely representative of everybody in America.... I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network, Fox." --CNN's Susan Roesgen

"Are these protesters really out of step with the majority of Americans? We just saw ... that 62 percent of the people here approve of the president's handling of the economy, and that Americans rate taxes, incredibly at, the very bottom of the most important economic issues right now." --CNN's Christiane Amanpour

"You have to remember that at almost any given time any cockamamie proposition in America will have at least 25 percent of those polled supporting it. It was a good stunt. ... We pay relatively small taxes. ...[W]hat you ostensibly get for it is a civilized kind of social compact where you don't have massive civil eruptions. That is what taxes are for." --NPR's Nina Totenberg on the tea parties

"A lot of news outlets mocked these protesters.... But, if a media outlet wants to expose its bias, they can mock tea parties, if they like. ... I'm not going to mention names of people on networks that made sexual jokes, childish sexual jokes, about tens of thousands of Americans who went out and wanted to get involved in their government. I mean, it was really middle school jokes being made. I didn't hear those jokes being made when people on the left protested over the past eight years." --MSNBC's Joe Scarborough

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The Media

"Newspapers ... serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke." --Thomas Jefferson

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Specter's Spectacle

"In finally abandoning the Republican Party, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter showed his true colors not just ideologically, but personally. It's all about the liberal Specter maximizing his own power. The climax Tuesday of Arlen Specter's long, drawn-out betrayal of his party may seem like it came out of nowhere -- especially since it was only last month that he said he'd seek re-election as a Republican. But why be shocked when a hardened Machiavellian does what comes naturally after doing the math? As a Democrat, Sen. Specter will now be Washington's king power. broker, since he is poised to be the 60th vote for Democrats in the U.S. Senate, constituting a filibuster-proof majority at a time when the federal government is undergoing an unprecedented expansion in size and power. No one is falling for Specter's hand-wringing rationale that "since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right." He was just as uncomfortable with Reaganism back then as he is now, all along relishing his role as RINO -- Republican In Name Only -- whose vote was up for sale. ... As vote No. 60 in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body (assuming vote No. 59 belongs to comedian Al Franken of Minnesota), Specter will be owed an incalculable debt by congressional Democrats and President Obama. There will be no threats of party discipline against him on the occasions when he votes with Republicans, no warnings that campaign funds will be kept from him. ... Each and every big vote in the Senate will be a bargaining opportunity for Specter. Riches and favors will be showered upon him for the power he prostitutes. ... Reserve a space for a new addition to history's Rogues' Gallery." --Investor's Business Daily

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Principles, Not Partisanism

"Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party generally. ... A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."
--George Washington, Farewell Address, 19 September 1796

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Do Calmer Heads Prevail?

"It is a misfortune, inseparable from human affairs, that public measures are rarely investigated with that spirit of moderation which is essential to a just estimate of their real tendency to advance or obstruct the public good; and that this spirit is more apt to be diminished than prompted, by those occasions which require an unusual exercise of it."
--James Madison, Federalist No. 37

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Protection of Which Life?

"If torturing terrorists works -- as the Obama administration had to admit grudgingly [last] week -- is it okay? No, of course not, the chattering class proudly concluded. One wonders why. What do they care? Having already accepted abortion and euthanasia -- which are nothing more than the expedient killing of the unborn and the elderly -- why should the expedient torture of terrorists, a lesser evil, trouble them? Oh, that's right: the terrorists are guilty and the guilty under the ministrations of modern liberalism never suffer. Pain in modern life is for the innocent. Terrorists, we're told by pro-abortion liberals, suffer excruciating pain while the ejected unborn and euthanized elderly feel nothing. And even if the latter do suffer pain, say these liberals, that pain is worth it. After all, abortion and euthanasia sustain a pleasant and peaceful lifestyle for the strong. Let the dead bury the dead. ... Obama's liberalism is not an opponent of human rights abuses but an embodiment of them. The CIA restricts itself to methods far less ruthless than those permitted by the platform of the Democratic Party. When will Obama bring his own platform into line with the Geneva Accords? It is a little late in the day for Obama to worry about America's moral reputation. Resisting evil even 'when it is hard' hasn't interested liberalism for at least four decades. It rests on an ideology of expedient evil and crass utilitarianism." --Catholic World Report editor George Neumayr

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The EPA's Power Grab

"One of the most important events of our lifetimes may have just transpired. A federal agency has decided that it has the power to regulate everything, including the air you breathe. Nominally, the Environmental Protection Agency's announcement ... only applies to new-car emissions. But pretty much everyone agrees that the ruling opens the door to regulating, well, everything. According to the EPA, greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide -- the gas you exhale -- as well as methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. It is literally impossible to imagine a significant economic or human activity that does not involve the production of one of these gases. Don't think just of the gas and electricity bills. Cow flatulence is a serious concern of the EPA's already. What next? ... Whether or not global warming is a crisis that warrants immediate, drastic action (I don't think it does), and whether or not such wholesale measures would be an economic calamity (they would be), the EPA's decision should be disturbing to people who believe in democratic, constitutional government. ...[T]he EPA has launched its power grab over all that burns, breathes, burps, flies, drives and passes gas." --National Review editor Jonah Goldberg

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Loss of Self-Determination

"It really is difficult to imagine how people who have entirely given up managing their own affairs could make a wise choice of those who are to do that for them. One should never expect a liberal, energetic, and wise government to originate in the votes of a people of servants." --French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
GOVERNMENT

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Consolidation of Power

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." --James Madison

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The Ruin of States

"History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened."
--Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations

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Viva la Revolucion!

"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution."
--John Adams, letter to H. Niles, 13 February 1818

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Naive

"If a nation expects to be ignorant -- and free ... it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson

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Taxes & States Rights

"Besides, to lay and collect internal taxes in this extensive country must require a great number of congressional ordinances, immediately operation upon the body of the people; these must continually interfere with the state laws and thereby produce disorder and general dissatisfaction till the one system of laws or the other, operating upon the same subjects, shall be abolished."
--Federal Farmer, Antifederalist Letter, 10 October 1787

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"Let it begin here"

"Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they want a war let it begin here."
--Captain John Parker, commander of the militiamen at Lexington, Massachusetts, on sighting British Troops (attributed), 19 April 1775

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More Taxes

"When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of a free government." --President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908)

"Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt." --President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964)

"To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder." --British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

"The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." --American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

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Death and Taxes

"[I]n this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." --Benjamin Franklin

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Tax and Destroy

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."
--John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland, 1819

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No More Taxes

"The choice before us is clear. I strongly feel that the great majority of Americans believe that nothing would better encourage economic growth than leaving more money in the hands of the people who earn it. It's time to stop stripping bare the productive citizens of America and funneling their hard-earned income into the Federal bureaucracy. ... Americans have always been prepared to pay their fair share, but today they should make it clear to all elected officials that government has gone beyond its bounds and that the people will not tolerate [an] ever-increasing tax burden." --Ronald Reagan

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Financial Suicide

"So low and hopeless are the finances of the United States, that, the year before last Congress was obliged to borrow money even, to pay the interest of the principal which we had borrowed before. This wretched resource of turning interest into principal, is the most humiliating and disgraceful measure that a nation could take, and approximates with rapidity to absolute ruin: Yet it is the inevitable and certain consequence of such a system as the existing Confederation." --North Carolina delegate to the Constitutional Convention William Richardson Davie (1756-1820)

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Polarization

"How many in-your-face radical leftist appointments must Obama make before some realize this apparently conciliatory man is indeed a polarizing radical? Let's just look at the [Harry] Knox appointment [to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships]. ... Knox is the militant homosexual activist who, just last month, called Pope Benedict XVI and certain Catholic bishops 'discredited leaders' for opposing same-sex marriage. He said the Knights of Columbus are 'foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression' because they supported California's Proposition 8 ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. ... Knox also denounced the teachings of the apostle Paul as 'not true.' 'Paul,' said Knox, 'did not have any idea of the kind of love that I feel for a partner when I am partnered. ... The straight man, the heterosexual man who got the privilege of writing the book, the educated, rich heterosexual man, Paul ... didn't think it was natural because for him it must not have been.' When appointed, Knox said the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community 'will support the president in living up to his promise that government has no place in funding bigotry against any group of people.' Sounds harmless enough on its face until you understand that Knox and the LGBT community consider the failure to support the judiciary's thwarting of the people's democratic will to define marriage as heterosexual in character to be bigotry." --columnist David Limbaugh

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Morality

"Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness." --Samuel Adams

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Freedom or Slavery

"[T]he hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings of Liberty - that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men."
--George Washington, General Orders, 23 August 1776

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The Worst Is Yet To Come

"Do not be surprised by the cynical use of the Department of Homeland Security for a political information war campaign. It is the modus operandi of the Left and has been used effectively for decades. ... In the information battle we live through, every media story and every government report is suspect. Experts, universities, think tanks, non-profits and interest groups are all tools for the spin masters and propagandists whose ethics are defined by 'the ends justifies the means' of Saul Alinsky's model. The DHS Rightwing Extremism paper is merely a recent example of how the American people and their law enforcement agencies are manipulated. When those who excel at information manipulation and media control also sit in government the price of truth becomes eternal skepticism. And we ain't seen nothin' yet." --columnist Lance Fairchok

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Fight!

"Thomas Jefferson told us 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,' and the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country." --Rep. Michele Bachman (R-MN)
On Cross-Examination

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It had begun

"What a glorious morning this is!"
--Samuel Adams to John Hancock at the Battle of Lexington, Massachusetts, 19 April 1775
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Letter to my bank...

Dear Sirs,
One of my checks was returned marked "insufficient funds". In view of current developments in the banking industry, does that refer to me or to you?
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The Overbearing Tax Burden

"The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets."
--James Madison, Federalist No. 10

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Simpler Taxation

"Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1784

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"Whether 'tis nobler..."

"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them."

Hamlet
by William Shakespeare
Act III, Scene I, lines 57-60

Wisdom

“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”

-Anatole France

Have Enough Courage for Life?

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

-Anais Nin

A Different Type of Freedom

“True freedom lies in the realization and calm acceptance of the fact that there may very well be no perfect answer.”

-Allen Reid McGinnis

Our Duty to God is Our Duty to Our Country

"It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society."
--James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785

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The Hand of Providence

"The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. ... The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institution may be abused by human depravity. ... It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors." --George Washington

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Religious Freedom

"[R]eligion, or the duty which we owe to our creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and this is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other."
--Virginia Bill of Rights, Article 16, June 12, 1776

Via Patriot Post

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This Great Land

"The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety."
--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

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Loss of Liberty

"There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage."
--John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776

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Corruption Is As Corruption Does

"If I'm corrupt, it's because I take care of my district." --Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)

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Gun Grabbers

"[T]here's no doubt in my mind that the 10 years we had an assault weapons ban in America was one of the tools that helped to drive down the crime rate."
--Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Mexico City discussing Mexico's drug crime

**If by "drive down" she means "had no effect whatsoever," she's correct.

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The President of GM

Extreme abuse of power: "While GM has made a good faith effort to restructure over the past several months, the plan they have put forward is, in its current form, not strong enough. However, after broad consultations with a range of industry experts and financial advisors, I'm confident that GM can rise again, provided that it undergoes a fundamental restructuring. As an initial step ... Rick Wagoner is stepping aside as Chairman and CEO. ... In this context, my administration will offer General Motors adequate working capital over the next 60 days. During this time, my team will be working closely with GM to produce a better business plan. ... Let me be clear: The United States government has no interest or intention of running GM." --Barack Obama

Government warranty: "If you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired just like always. Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it's ever been because ... the United States government will stand behind your warranty." --usurper in chief Barack Obama

**What was that about "no interest in running GM"?

Another czar -- who has no interest in running GM, of course: "I am designating a new Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers to cut through red tape and ensure that the full resources of our federal government are leveraged to assist the workers, communities, and regions that rely on our auto industry." --Barack Obama

It won't if you leave it alone: "We cannot, we must not, and we will not let our auto industry simply vanish." --Barack Obama

Wrong: "The market will not solve this. And the great risk for us is we do too little, not that we do too much." --Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

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Unconstitutional Power Grab

"There has always been a line ... which no president would cross, with respect to the distinction between the public and private sectors. Obama has now crossed that line. There is no limit to government's destruction of private activity or control over it."
--radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh

"[W]hy isn't Obama's special auto task force ordering a replacement for Ron Gettelfinger, the UAW's president? Weren't their oversized pay and benefit packages a big part of the problem? Well, that's never gonna happen. The election power of the union is too strong. But this does reveal the political nature of these government bailout operations."
--economist Lawrence Kudlow

"We are seeing the biggest power grab by politicians in American history. The idea that they would propose that the Treasury could intervene and take over non-bank, non-financial system assets gives them the potential to basically create the equivalent of a dictatorship."
--former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich

"If you listen to the principal spokesmen for U.S. economic policy -- Obama and Geithner -- they grow daily ever more explicitly hostile to the private sector and ever more comfortable with the language of micromanaged government-approved capitalism -- which, of course, isn't capitalism at all."
--columnist Mark Steyn

"The financial markets are sluggish, but they are functioning. It's time to wind down the bailouts -- and get the federal government out of the way."
--Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner


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GM (Government Motors)

"Well, at least now we know who's running General Motors. The Obama White House, in an extraordinary expansion of the government's reach, Sunday demanded and got the head of Rick Wagoner, the automaker's embattled chief executive. In doing so, the president brushed aside GM's board of directors, selected by shareholders and entrusted with the power to hire and fire executives, and assumed that role for himself. ... Shareholders can read the handwriting on the wall -- this isn't their company anymore. That's the risk you take when you go hat in hand to Washington. It ought to be a red flag for other companies and industries that might be thinking a federal bailout is the answer for surviving the recession. President Barack Obama is using the $13.4 billion in federal loans as leverage to re-create GM in the image of a Washington with little apparent affinity for manufacturers. ... The president also needs a scalp to wave before both a Congress growing queasy about federal bailouts and the automaker's bondholders, who aren't happy about granting a huge discount on their GM debt. The trick now is to find someone to run the automaker. Good luck with the headhunting. How many top-notch corporate executives will jump at the chance to lead a company that is sinking like a rock? Who will be willing to share the corporate suite with federal bureaucrats? And by the way, the job pays a buck a year, and if you need to fly, it better be coach. Running a tobacco company has to have more appeal." --The Detroit News
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The Next Tyrant

"[O]f those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1
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Despotism

"The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position."
--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
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God, alone, grants rights. Not man.

"Let the pulpit resound with the doctrine and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear of the dignity of man's nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God... Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes and parliaments."
--John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
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The Despotic Judiciary

"[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 11 September 1804

Duty

"We have duties, for the discharge of which we are accountable to our Creator and benefactor, which no human power can cancel. What those duties are, is determinable by right reason, which may be, and is called, a well informed conscience."
--Theophilus Parsons, the Essex Result, 1778

Cease to Be Idle

"Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing. And that you may be always doing good, my dear, is the ardent prayer of yours affectionately."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Martha Jefferson, 5 May 1787

America, The Great

"The Citizens of America, placed in the most enviable condition, as the sole Lords and Proprietors of a vast Tract of Continent, comprehending all the various soils and climates of the World, and abounding with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life, are now by the late satisfactory pacification, acknowledged to be possessed of absolute freedom and Independency; They are, from this period, to be considered as the Actors on a most conspicuous Theatre, which seems to be peculiarly designated by Providence for the display of human greatness and felicity; Here, they are not only surrounded with every thing which can contribute to the completion of private and domestic enjoyment, but Heaven has crowned all its other blessings, by giving a fairer opportunity for political happiness, than any other Nation has ever been favored with. Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly, than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances, under which our Republic assumed its rank among the Nations."

--George Washington, Circular to the States, 8 June 1783

Well-Armed

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
—Benjamin Franklin

Equality

"All Men being naturally equal, as descended from a common Parent, enbued with like Faculties and Propensities, having originally equal Rights and Properties, the Earth being given to the Children of Men in general, without any difference, distinction, natural Preheminence, or Dominion of one over another, yet Men not being equally industrious and frugal, their Properties and Enjoyments would be unequal."
--Abraham Williams An Election Sermon, 1762

Debt

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kercheval, 12 July 1816

Consent of the Governed

"The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority."
--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 22, 14 December 1787

Live Well

"Wish not so much to live long as to live well."
--Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1746

The Best Man

"Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself."
--Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1746

The Need for Truth

"It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, 19 August 1785

America

"This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a ban of brethren, united to each other by the strongest of ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties."
--John Jay, Federalist No. 2

Conscience

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."
--George Washington, The Rules of Civility, Circa 1748

The Tree of Liberty

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, 13 November 1787

The Monster of Tryanny Still Lives

"This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still."
--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

The Late, Great George Washington

"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in humble and enduring scenes of private life. Pious, just humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform dignified, and commanding; his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example lasting.... The purity of his private charter gave effulgence to his public virtues...."
--John Marshall, official eulogy of George Washington, delivered by Richard Henry Lee, 26 December 1799

Government Growth

"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Spencer Roane, 9 March 1821

Financial Freedom

"It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome."
--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 35

Utopia may be our destruction.

Epigraph to Huxley's Brave New World:

"Utopias appear to be a good deal more realizable than was previously thought. And today we are faced with an alarming question of a different nature: How to avoid their complete realization? Utopias are realizable. Life moves towards utopias. And perhaps a new century is beginning, a century when intellectuals and the cultured class will dream of ways of avoiding utopias and of returning to a non-utopic society, less "perfect" and more "free."



—Nicholas Berdiaeff, translated from the French

Fight the Tyranny

"It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government."
--Mercy Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, 1805

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Troubles

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions!"

William Shakespeare
Hamlet
Act IV, scene v, lines 77-78

Cease To Be Idle

"Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Martha Jefferson, 5 May 1787
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Character

"Some day, in the years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now...Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process."
-Phillip Brooks (1853-1893)

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Liberty and Tyranny via Lincoln

"We all declare for Liberty. But in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. For some the word Liberty may mean to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor. While with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, Liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names, Liberty and Tyranny."
-Abraham Lincoln

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Liberty and Tyranny

"Tyranny is persistent. Tyranny has existed since the beginning of man. Liberty takes people to be resolute, it takes some thinking, it takes some proper education and understanding, and it takes confidence. Tyranny takes brute force and emotion and propaganda."
-Mark Levin
Interview with Rush Limbaugh, 25 March 2009

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Clunky Government

"Wise politicians will be cautious about fettering the government with restrictions that cannot be observed, because they know that every break of the fundamental laws, though dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence which ought to be maintained in the breast of rulers towards the constitution of a country."
--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 25, 21 December 1787

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Choice: The Foundation of Freedom

"We stand at the crossroads, each minute, each hour, each day, making choices. We choose the thoughts we allow ourselves to think, the passions we allow ourselves to feel, and the actions we allow ourselves to perform. Each choice is made in the context of whatever value system we've selected to govern our lives. In selecting that value system, we are, in a very real way, making the most important choice we will ever make.

"Those who believe there is one God who made all things and who governs the world by his Providence will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who hold in reverence that being who gave them life and worship Him through adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who believe that mankind are all of a family and that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who believe in a future state in which all that is wrong here will be made right will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who subscribe to the morals of Jesus will make choices different from those who do not.

"Since the foundation of all happiness is thinking rightly, and since correct action is dependent on correct opinion, we cannot be too careful in choosing the value system we allow to govern our thoughts and actions.

"And to know that God governs in the affairs of men, that he hears and answers prayers, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, is indeed, a powerful regulator of human conduct."

-Benjamin Franklin
"Benjamin Franklin's The Art of Virtue," ed. George L. Rogers (1996), 88-90.

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The "Great" Orator

"Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason." --Benjamin Franklin
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Religion and The Law

"Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other. The divine law, as discovered by reason and the moral sense, forms an essential part of both."
--James Wilson, law lectures at the University of Pennsylvania
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Equal Protection

"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy."
--Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, circa 1774

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States' Rights

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." --James Madison, Federalist No. 45

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Great Communication Skills

"Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason." --Benjamin Franklin

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No Nobles

"It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can."
--John Adams, letter to Count Sarsfield, 3 February 1786

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Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms

"Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them."
--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms, 6 July 1775

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Encroaching Power

"It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. After discriminating, therefore, in theory, the several classes of power, as they may in their nature be legislative, executive, or judiciary, the next and most difficult task is to provide some practical security for each, against the invasion of the others."
--James Madison, Federalist No. 48
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Ancient Logic and Reason

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
--Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book, 1774-1776

To Preserve Liberty

"[W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it."
--Richard Henry Lee, Letters from the Federal Farmer, 1788

The Road to Disarmament

"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, - who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia."
--George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 14 June 1778

Guard and Fight

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."
--Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 5 June 1778

We Bear Arms

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."
--Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 10 October 1787

An Intolerable Evil; Yet Necessary?

"[G]overnment, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one."
--Thomas Paine

To Defend the Law, Not To Break It

"To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, counties or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws."
--John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787-1788

The Birthright of an American

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? It is feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. ...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
--A Pennsylvanian, The Pennsylvania Gazette, 20 February 1788

From Whence Liberty?

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."
--John Adams

For Only a Morale and Religious People

"We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
--John Adams

Wealth via Commerce

"The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of its political cares."
--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 12, 27 November 1787

Fruits of The New Deal

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."
--Thomas Jefferson

Liberty of Commerce

"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 7 July 1785

Free Commerce

"Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of Commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with Powers so disposed; in order to give trade a stable course."
--George Washington, Farewell Address, 19 September 1796

The Penalties of Property

"A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species."
--James Madison

Freedom in the Market

"[C]ommercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic. ...[I]f industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out."
--James Madison, speech to Congress, 9 April 1789

Commerce

"War is not the best engine for us to resort to; nature has given us one in our commerce, which if properly managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Pickney, 29 May 1797

Resistance to Government

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. ... I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."
--Thomas Jefferson

Remember The Alamo!

Commandancy of the Alamo------

Bexar Fby. 24th 1836

To the People of Texas &
All Americans in the World------

Fellow Citizens & Compatriots------

I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna ----- I have sustained a continual bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man ----- The enemy has demanded a Surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken ----- I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still wave proudly from the walls ----- I shall never surrender or retreat

Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & every thing dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch ----- The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country ----- Victory or Death

William Barret Travis
Lt. Col. Comdt



P. S. The lord is on our side- When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn---We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels & got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves---

Travis