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2009 July 03
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"If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence, it would have been worthwhile." |
"May [the Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I believe
it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all),
the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish
ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves,
and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form
which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded
exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened,
or opening, to the rights of man." |
"I am not free until I say so.
And there's a good chance
I am going to have to fight once I do.
Ever since I declared my Independence,
I have had to support and defend it." |
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2009 July 02
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Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." |
"I answered that the die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon.
Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country
was my unalterable determination." |
"There, I guess King George will be able to read that." |
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2009 July 01
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“A national government is a government of the people of a single state or nation, united as a community by what is termed the 'social compact,’ and possessing complete and perfect supremacy over persons and things, so far as they can be made the lawful objects of civil government. A federal government is distinguished from a national government by its being the government of a community of independent and sovereign states, united by compact." |
"...The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document.
The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless
the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet.
The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to
keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb.
The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from
search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile
of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any
of these freedoms under any circumstances." |
"That government is best which governs least." |
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2009 June 30
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"After a shooting spree,
they always want to take the guns
away from the people
who didn't do it.
I sure as hell
wouldn't want to live in a society
where the only people
allowed guns
are the police and the military." |
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"I should, indeed, prefer twenty men to escape death through mercy,
than one innocent to be condemned unjustly." |
"It was we, the people;
not we, the white male citizens;
nor yet we, the male citizens;
but we, the whole people,
who formed the Union." |
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2009 June 29
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"It is fundamental that the great powers of Congress to conduct
war and to regulate the Nation's foreign relations are subject to the
constitutional requirements of due process. The imperative necessity
for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the
gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional
history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that
there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental
constitutional guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit
governmental action." |
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague." |
"There is no reason for anyone in this country, anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use a handgun. I used to think handguns could be controlled by laws about registration, by laws requiring waiting periods for purchasers, by laws making sellers check out the past of buyers. I now think the only way to control handgun use in this country is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution." |
"The Liberal Democrat remain steadfast in their belief that liberty must not be sacrificed on the altar of security and regrets the climate of fear that has been fostered by the approach of both Labour and the Conservatives to issues of domestic and international security. We believe that liberty, justice and the separation of powers are essential to achieving lasting security and that abandoning liberties, particularly in the face of unconventional threats from criminals and terrorists, will only serve to make Britain both less free and less secure." |
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