A beginner's work in progress.......
What it takes to remain free
Published on September 20, 2005 By dabe In Politics
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." - Samuel Johnson

"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." - Thomas Jefferson

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes strong than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." - Dwight D. Eisenhower (the last honest Republican President)

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from the government."
- Thomas Paine

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
- Samuel Adams

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."
- President Abraham Lincoln

"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce and brave man, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
- 'Mark Twain'

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President."
- President Theodore Roosevelt

"War Is A Racket.
A racket is best described,
I believe, as something that is not what it seems
to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside"
group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit
of the very few, at the expense of the very many.
Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
-- Major General Smedley Butler(US Marine Corps, Retired)


"Never has there been a good war or a bad peace."
--Benjamin Franklin


"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"
-- Benjamin Franklin


"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government
owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance
between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task
of the statesmanship of the day."
-- Theodore Roosevelt (April 19, 1906)


"Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution
of the United States as our Fathers made it inviolate. The people of
the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the
Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men
who pervert the Constitution."
-- Abraham Lincoln


"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice
of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of
increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror
to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
-- Harry S. Truman


"The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty."
-- Adlai E. Stevenson


"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."
-- John F. Kennedy


"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."
-- Thomas Jefferson


"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"
-- Samuel Adams (American revolutionary)


"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both."
-- James Madison (Fourth President of the United States)

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Comments (Page 2)
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on Sep 21, 2005

"Never has there been a good war or a bad peace."
--Benjamin Franklin


I am sure Ben Franklin was a very smart man, but would he say that to a holocaust survivor?
on Sep 21, 2005
Is standing by the decisions of congress standing by the country?

What if congress agrees with the President?


You forget Leauki, Congress does nothing, they are merely spectators in our system of government. The President is all powerful... so says the democrats. ;~D
on Sep 21, 2005

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice
of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of
increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror
to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
-- Harry S. Truman


And at some point such a government is protected only be international law and world-wide left-wing opinion.
on Sep 21, 2005
Looking back at some of those quotes I realised that most of the Founding Fathers of the United States would probably be labeled Loony Loopy Leftists by the neocons of today...


Loopy, possibly. I mean look at Aaron Burr for crying outloud. But Leftists. Nah.

Somehow they didn't do the whole antiwar thing, you know, the American Revolution, War of 1812, and a bunch of other little pissant actions?

Next, they were against big government (especially without representation.) Opposed extra tariffs, taxes, government actions of any kind. And even after they revolted, it was years before they agreed to become more than a confederation of squabbling states, each doing it's own thing.

Environmentalists? Nope, pioneers. Big difference of opinion.

Religious and moral values? While some of them may have been a little liberal for the time, it wasn't exactly widespread amongst the founders. Just because the continental congress had a deist or two, and a couple of agnostics, doesn't mean they would have lined up with modern liberal views on abortion, homosexuality, affirmative action, or gun control.

They were certainly "liberals" in that they were trying to change the status quo. But their liberal values were the basis for the "conservative" values in america today.
on Sep 21, 2005
Loopy, possibly. I mean look at Aaron Burr for crying outloud. But Leftists. Nah.


Lincoln was, I believe, more on the "let's fight a war against the racists" side. The Democrats, then as now, disagreed, of course.
on Sep 21, 2005
Lincoln was, I believe, more on the "let's fight a war against the racists" side


Funny, didn't I just see this quote from his inaugural address on another forum post on dabe's site?

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.


Regardless of the reasons the South withdrew, Lincoln tried to maintain the unity of the nation. Yes, he was against slavery, but he was more than willing to let it ride in the interests of maintaining a roman named Status Quo.

And that kinda makes him a conservative, doesn't it? Besides, he's about 90 years to late to have been a Founding Father, which is what my reply was about to begin with.
on Sep 21, 2005
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke

Which is exactly why we righties are here, dabe.

This country has gone to the crapper ever since LBJ worked his voodoo, and every Republican president since has been trying to patch up the holes he made in our ship of state.

Jefferson also said:

"From time to time, the Tree of Liberty needs to be refreshed with the blood of tyrants and dictators."

Saddam, anyone?
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