Common Sense Alert!: November 2016

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

Monday, November 21, 2016

A real anomaly

"Conservative but intelligent." This was Wolf Blitzer's description yesterday of Mike Pompeo, soon-to-be-head of the CIA.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Beware the code language

After meeting with President-elect Trump last Thursday morning, President Obama told reporters, "I believe that it is important for all of us, regardless of party and regardless of political preferences, to now come together, work together, to deal with the many challenges that we face."

This is code language for: "We lost the election, so now we have to convince Republicans that they should give us an equal say in all decisions over the next four years. Those idiots have fallen for this ploy in the past, so we may as well try it again."
spider-and-the-fly.jpg (473×217)

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Saved by the Electoral College

It seems as though Hillary Clinton may win the popular vote, even though Donald Trump will end up with a substantial majority of electoral votes. The founders created the Electoral College to prevent the large states from dominating the small ones, and this is exactly what has happened. As of 7:30 am on November 9, Clinton is ahead of Trump by about 134,000. But if we subtract New York and California from each candidates' totals, Trump is ahead by about 4 million votes. The Electoral College has prevented NY and CA from dominating the election and forcing a president on us that the rest of the country didn't want. Thank you, James Madison, et al.

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."

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Thomas Paine

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