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Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. Thomas Paine, writing from Philadelphia, February 14, 1776
Thomas Paine
Author of the best seller Common Sense (1776)
About this blog
This blog contains the common sense thoughts of three concerned Americans: Dave, Bill, and Brian. Others are welcome to post their comments.
About the bloggers
- Dave
- Carlisle, PA
- My best friend is my wife, Barbara. Though I am concerned about my country, I am at peace about our future.
Rhetorical Gold
Watch and Consider
Blog Archive
Quotes we must never forget!
"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." William Penn
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other." John Adams
“The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate the minds of the people.” Thomas Jefferson
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." James Madison
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis de Tocqueville
"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve this measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded." Frankin Pierce
"The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next." Abraham Lincoln
"All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such a manner as they may think expedient. This means that the citizen who thinks he sees that the nation’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor." Mark Twain
"You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we're not bound by that same limitation?" Ronald W. Reagan
"We have four boxes from which we can defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box." Larry McDonald
“That government is best which governs least” Henry David Thoreau
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened." Norman Thomas, Socialist Party of America
"Socialism was the tragic failure of the twentieth century. Born of a commitment to remedy the economic and moral defects of capitalism, it has far surpassed capitalism in both economic malfunction and moral cruelty." Robert Heilbroner, committed socialist (for most of his life)
"To sit home, read one’s favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men doing." Theodore Roosevelt
"A word to the wise ain’t necessary--it’s the stupid ones that need advice." Bill Cosby
TJ's insight on the two universal parties
Men by there constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: (1) Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. (2) Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist; and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee (August 10, 1824)
"Wherever there are men, there will be parties; and wherever there are free men they will make themselves heard. Those of firm health and spirits are unwilling to cede more of their liberty than is necessary to preserve order; those of feeble constitutions will wish to see one strong arm able to protect them from the many. These are the Whigs (Conservative Constitutionalists) and Tories (Liberal Democrats) of nature."
Thomas Jefferson: Misc. Notes, 1801? FE 8:1
"Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object: the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers, the other by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove. We think that one side of this experiment has been long enough tried and proved not to promote the good of the many, and that the other has not been fairly and sufficiently tried. Our opponents think the reverse. With whichever opinion the body of the nation concurs, that must prevail."
Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:52
"Men have differed in opinion and been divided into parties by these opinions from the first origin of societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed through all time. Whether the power of the people or that of the [aristocracy] should prevail were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot. And in fact the terms of Whig and Tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals."
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:279
"The division into Whig and Tory is founded in the nature of man; the weakly and nerveless, the rich and the corrupt, seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive; the healthy, firm, and virtuous, feeling confidence in their physical and moral resources, and willing to part with only so much power as is necessary for their good government; and, therefore, to retain the rest in the hands of the many, the division will substantially be into Whig and Tory."
Thomas Jefferson to Joel Barlow, 1802. ME 10:310
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee (August 10, 1824)
"Wherever there are men, there will be parties; and wherever there are free men they will make themselves heard. Those of firm health and spirits are unwilling to cede more of their liberty than is necessary to preserve order; those of feeble constitutions will wish to see one strong arm able to protect them from the many. These are the Whigs (Conservative Constitutionalists) and Tories (Liberal Democrats) of nature."
Thomas Jefferson: Misc. Notes, 1801? FE 8:1
"Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object: the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers, the other by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove. We think that one side of this experiment has been long enough tried and proved not to promote the good of the many, and that the other has not been fairly and sufficiently tried. Our opponents think the reverse. With whichever opinion the body of the nation concurs, that must prevail."
Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:52
"Men have differed in opinion and been divided into parties by these opinions from the first origin of societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed through all time. Whether the power of the people or that of the [aristocracy] should prevail were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot. And in fact the terms of Whig and Tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals."
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:279
"The division into Whig and Tory is founded in the nature of man; the weakly and nerveless, the rich and the corrupt, seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive; the healthy, firm, and virtuous, feeling confidence in their physical and moral resources, and willing to part with only so much power as is necessary for their good government; and, therefore, to retain the rest in the hands of the many, the division will substantially be into Whig and Tory."
Thomas Jefferson to Joel Barlow, 1802. ME 10:310
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
11 comments:
What a brilliant video. This guy is very talented.
What can I add? Brian says it all: brilliant. Simply brilliant. I love the guy's energy.
I bet the founding fathers would be surprised that the document they wrote over 200 years ago is still being used with less than 20 amendments added to it.
I think the only thing they might be surprised at is that the government they created has chosen to ignore their document rather than ammend it as they intended.
when I was in school, even college years, I was taught the constitution is a living breathing document and was intentionally written like that.That must have been from some liberal lefty teacher. But in case it wasn't, when did the constitution become such a strictly interpreted document to be used to fits one's own personal beliefs. I was also taught that the amendment process was put in to allow the document to grow with the times so to speak.
You're right, whoever told you the Constitution was written to be a living, breathing document was indeed a liberal lefty. But that contention is common currency in the leftist playbook. The Founders included the opportunity for ammendment just for the very reason that they considered the Constitution they wrote and adopted to mean exactly what it says. If you want it to mean something else, then you have to go through the ammendment process. But the leftists know that they couldn't get most of their stuff through that process (remember the ERA). So instead of bothering with the messy business of ammendments, they just change the meaning by judicial fiat. That is what I promise you makes Madison et al role over in their graves.
So the courts are also a part of this vast left wing agenda?
Tom, you may want to go in and clean up the punctuation error in that last comment. Surely you didn't mean to put a question mark at the end of your declaratory sentence?
All of the comments and back and forth in these blog posts over the past couple of days remind me of that scene in The Ten Commandments. Moses strides into Ramses's court and, summoning the power of the Almighty, turns his staff into a writhing cobra.
Ramses's court magicians share a little wink and a nod, and using some age-old trickery, turn a couple of royal staves into snakes as well.
The pharoah and the magicians share a smug and knowing smile: you see, Moses, you have your tricks and we have ours. And they reveal themselves to be in profound denial about the truth that has just hit them in the face.
The left and its apologists can summon up their snake tricks too - kids singing Bush's praises, a misstatement or two on a Fox news program - and miss a greater truth: an agenda-driven hard-left Alinsky-inspired street agitator with a palpable ambivalence about American exceptionalism is at the helm and is steering us on a course that can only end very very badly.
And the apologists, instead of sounding alarums at every corner, waste precious time and energy tracking down gotcha videos of a bunch of kids singing a thank you song to George Bush. (As though there were actually a Bush cult out there; as though a highly respected editor of one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious news weeklies had called Bush "some kind of a god.")
Oh, one other thing. . . that scene in The Ten Commandments? It ends rather badly for the royal magicians' snakes. Moses' cobra swallows them up whole. Whether it chews them up and spits them out isn't depicted in the movie.
Such a shame that your heads appear to just be buried into the sands of conservative misspeaks and lies about Obama and Democrats. Other than Farrakhan, who is a non factor concernign anything calling Obama the messiah, the only other people that call him that are conservative pundits and bloggers. I have never heard a liberal call him the messiah, but boy Rush sure does. Worrying about some guys tenets who has been dead for 30 years just seems like such a waste of time to me. You should listen to 2009 talk, not talk from 30 or 40 years ago. As I have said in previous posts, big pharma, oil, banks, and now I will add insurance companies run this country, dems and republicans, liberals and conservatives. That above all else is what needs changed.
Tom, my brother, this is the classic liberal line, that big business runs the country, when the truth is, the government runs big business, often with their willing cooperation. For example, I just got a notice from my mortgage company stating that they are required to loan me up to 105% of the appraised value of my home if I decide to refinance. They also mentioned that the standards have been lowered for qualifying. All this because the government has told them they have to make these stupid loans. Of course, why should my mortgage company object? If I don't pay the loan, they know that the federal government will. Now who's controlling who?
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