Words Of Wisdom - From The Past

There were giants on the earth in those days, men of renown…

I see that the current administration and its apologists portray the Founding Fathers of this nation as ‘terrorists’ and ‘racists,’ worthy of nothing but our oh-so enlightened contempt.  These were men of such sentiments and acumen as the following examples:

* Thomas Jefferson:

“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.”

“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.”

“To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”

“The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please.”

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

“What has destroyed liberty and the rights of men in every government which has ever existed under the sun?  The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body.”

“He who governs least, governs best.”

“No Nation can remain both ignorant and free.  It has never happened and never will.” (There are a couple of versions of this sentiment in the record.  The longer one:  “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”)

“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people…they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.  This is the true corrective of the abuses of constitutional power.”

“When the government fears the people, there is liberty; but when the people tear the government, there is tyranny.”

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

“Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.”

“To appoint a monarchist to conduct the affairs of a republic is like appointing an atheist to the priesthood.”

“This surety today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.”

“When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”

“Whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up on them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered…I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” 

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

* James Madison:

“Knowledge will Forever Govern Ignorance: And a People Who Mean to be Their Own Governours, Must Arm Themselves with the Power Which Knowledge Gives.” (quoted on the Madison Building in Washington, D.C.)

“The ultimate authority … resides in the people alone. ... [T]he advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.”

* Samuel Adams:

“If ever the 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.”

“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved.  On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign invaders.”

* John Jay:

“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

* John Adams:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

“lI must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study maths and philosophy.”

“Abuse of words has been a great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party faction, and division of society.”

* Benjamin Franklin:

“I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power.  I am naturally very jealous for the rights and liberties of my country, and the least encroachment of those invaluable privileges is apt to make my blood boil.”

* Daniel Webster:

“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 fall, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”

* George Washington (in his Farewell Address):

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.”

And so forth…

What a bunch of low-lifes, eh?  To be put down as mere ‘terrorists,’ and sneered at as such as ‘slaveholders’ of their day??  

Well, they sure beat the pipsqueaks of our day and oh-so enlightened age.

—

And speaking of the lack of such gravitas in the current batch of leaders in the country; this, on the occasion of my being offered the dubious honor of becoming a Platinum Member of the Republican Presidential Task Force:

To: Roger F. Wicker, Chairman
      National Republican Senate Committee

Date: July 10, 2015

Dear Sen. Wicker,

You either do not read your mail, or are not given mail addressed to you to read.  I have been telling you for many mailings from you folks now that either the Republican Party calls Obama & the Democrat Party on his illegality in & for that office - for not being a “natural born” citizen* - or you can expect no more support from me.  & can expect to be hauled into court on RICO-statute charges, of having conspired with the Democrat Party in trashing the Constitution, in regards to this issue.  The issue, in its essence, of the demise of the rule of law in the nation.

(signed)

* see, e.g.: puzo1.blogspot.com