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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
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2009
(74)
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February
(11)
- Euro-style socialism?
- The Children Are Running the Kindergarten
- Socialism: Parasite of Capitalism
- Hundreds show up to protest global warming!
- Thoughts on a new march on Washington
- The Fairness Doctrine
- How utterly brazen!
- Back in the USSR
- Republican Awakening?
- Articulate, bright, and clean
- "I'm sorry, so sorry."
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February
(11)
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."
7 comments:
Beautiful! Their collective IQ exceeds that of Algore.
The marching morons
I posted this photo, partly because it's kinda funny, but also because it makes a point. The snowmen are protesting because they have a vested interest in the global warming phenomenon: if it actually happens, they are doomed. But they are protesting something that is only a perceived threat to their existence; it's not an actual threat because it isn't real--it's a fabrication. The point is, I'm all for protesting whatever the government is doing that affects the future existence of my family and my nation. But I want to be sure we are protesting the right things. There is a lot of deception going on right now. For example, a headline yesterday said that Obama is considering a 40% stake in CitiBank. Today the headline is that Bernanke is opposed to nationalizing banks. Later I heard Bernanke on the radio and what he said is that he defines nationalization as the government taking over a business, zeroing out the stockholders, and basically running the business from Washington. So maybe Bernanke didn't contradict what the president was considering. He's just defining nationalization in its fullest manifestation rather than in its various levels of manifestation. Maybe he actually has no problem at all with the government holding a 40% stake. My point is, what is meant by nationalizing a business? Obviously it means different things to different people, depending on what they're trying to get away with. This means, we cannot protest the government nationalizing businesses, we must be more specific. If we say we oppose nationaization, Obama and Bernanke will simply say, "Yeh, we oppose that too." They are too good at playing with words. We need to be very careful how we frame our arguements. Eventually the snowmen will realize this.
Well, to me, this all means that we need to assume that these people are either flat-out lying or attempting to deceive. It is incumbent on us to translate their double-talk and be in a position to protest their true intentions.
That is exactly my point. And it doesn't really matter whether they are intentionally lying or trying to deceive. If we accuse them of intentionally lying, we set ourselves up to be accused of being everyone else's judge or being holier-than-thou, which the liberals love to accuse conservatives of. Instead, we simply translate what they're saying and then protest the reality of it. This is why we need people who can articulate our values clearly and powerfully.
Here is the AP story on Bernanke's comments about nationalizing Citigroup. Listen to his silver tongued manipulation of language: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday again spurned speculation that the government may nationalize Citigroup or other big banks. When asked about Citigroup during a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Bernanke said nationalization "is when the government seizes the bank and zeros out the shareholders and begins to manage and run the bank. And, we don't plan anything like that." But Bernanke told lawmakers it is possible the government could end up with a much bigger ownership stake in Citigroup Inc. or other banks."
Notice how he defines nationalization as a total takeover and says that we won't do that. Then he admits that we may very well do what Obama is saying, which is also nationalizing, albeit at a lesser level. He wants to be able to nationalize banks without admitting that's what we're doing. Of course, no one in Congress challenges his definition. This is sinister.
They are Stalinists. And who set the table for all of this insanity? The great George W. Bush. He's made it so much easier for the socialists to ram their program through. And that traitor has put us in the position where we have to deal with the argument by the socialists, "Well, Bush did it, too; Bush started it." The treachery that Bush wrought on conservatives is as great as any visited upon his erstwhile supporters by any American politician. Greater than Nixon. It disgusts and galls me.
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