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2015 April 10
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"Who ordained that a few should have the land of Britain
as a perquisite; who made ten thousand people owners of the soil
and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?" |
"Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes.
The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people
still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint
inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity." |
"Government of the self was the original basis for republican
government, reflecting the view that civil society was much
more than politics. Society was made up of men and women
who gave order to their lives by entering into associations
on a voluntary basis, quite apart from government, for all
the various reasons of fellowship, philanthrophy,
faith and commerce." |
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2015 April 09
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"Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point,
it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution
is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals --
that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals,
only the conduct of the government --
that it is not a charter _for_ government power,
but a charter of the citizen's protection _against_ the government." |
"In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing." |
"If the States were not left to leave the Union
when their rights were interfered with,
the government would have been National,
but the Convention refused to baptize it by that name." |
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2015 April 08
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"Standing armies consist of professional soldiers who owe their livelihood and income to the government. Unlike civilians who render periodic service in local militia, professional soldiers do not own property and therefore do not have any source of income other than the government’s military paymaster. Thus, they are more likely to serve the government’s interests, regardless of whether its leaders are dishonest and corrupt or not. In fact, standing armies may even promote rapacious foreign or domestic policies if such policies enrich the army. In contrast, arms bearing, property owning citizen militiamen have a stake in the health of the republic as a whole and can be trusted to act in the republic’s best interests, whether those interests call for action in support of or against the political leadership of the nation." |
"Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail." |
"Anyone who tells you that 'It Can't Happen Here'
is whistling past the graveyard of history.
There is no 'house rule' that bars tyranny coming to America.
History is replete with republics whose people grew complacent
and descended into imperial butchery and chaos." |
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2015 April 07
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"These things I believe:
That government should butt out.
That freedom is our most precious commodity and
if we are not eternally vigilant, government will take it all away.
That individual freedom demands individual responsibility.
That government is not a necessary good but an unavoidable evil.
That the executive branch has grown too strong,
the judicial branch too arrogant
and the legislative branch too stupid.
That political parties have become close to meaningless.
That government should work to insure the rights of the individual,
not plot to take them away.
That government should provide for the national defense
and work to insure domestic tranquillity.
That foreign trade should be fair rather than free.
That America should be wary of foreign entanglements.
That the tree of liberty needs to be watered from time to time
with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
That guns do more than protect us from criminals;
more importantly, they protect us from the ongoing threat of government.
That states are the bulwark of our freedom.
That states should have the right to secede from the Union.
That once a year we should hang someone in government
as an example to his fellows." |
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2015 April 06
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"What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage." |
"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." |
"It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws." |
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