Gadsden's Grumbles In recent years I have watched the American political scene with increasing trepidation. I watch the so called leadership of this country lead us down a road toward the destruction of the very rights and values these self-same "leaders" swore to "uphold and defend" when they swore the oath of office. The administration shields itself from differing opinion and punishes dissent. They rally the faithful with an ever shriller call to the values they claim, but do not value for others. I hope that the words below, both mine and the words of the wise present and past, will help keep the voice of dissent and discussion open to what small degree one website can. I will include as may of the Founding Fathers as I can simply to show that the Neo-conservatives do NOT speak for those men and women that founded this country "In the course of Human events." |
Be there no rest for the wicked or the weary. They are wicked, keep them weary. |
He needs a new one. |
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A Few of My Opinions.Taken from my forum posts, e-mail or even my Live Journal these are things I have written I considered worth keeping.
Collected Quotes
No human being has the right -- under any circumstances -- to initiate force against another human being, nor to advocate, threaten or delegate its initiation. --The Zero Agression Principle
We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstractions police and threaten us. -- Robert Hayden, poet and educator - 1913-1980
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. --James Madison, fourth US president 1751-1836
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. --Dwight David Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president - 1890-1969
One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence. --Charles A. Beard, historian(1874-1948)
The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad." -- James Madison
Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws. --John Adams, 2nd US president 1735-1826
Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence. --Mahatma Gandhi 1869-1948
The politician is an acrobat. He keeps his balance by saying the opposite of what he does. --Maurice Barres, novelist and politician 1862-1923
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. --Edward R. Murrow,journalist 1908-1965
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. --Edward R. Murrow
Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit. --Edward R. Murrow
A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones. --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate 1918-
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. --Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author - 1743-1826
The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian governments -- Winston Churchill
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise. --Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman, 1561-1626
One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. --Milton Friedman, economist, Novel laureate 1912-
Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. --James Baldwin, writer 1924-1987
A king can stand people fighting but he can't last long if people start thinking. --Will Rogers, humorist 1879-1935
It does not require many words to speak the truth. --Chief Joseph, Nez Perce chief 1840-1904
Naturally the common people don't want war... [but] it is always a simple matter to drag the people along... [T]ell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." -- Hermann Goering
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. --Gore Vidal, writer
An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. --Don Marquis, humorist and poet 1878-1937
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. --Theodore Roosevelt - 1918
The power to command frequently causes failure to think. --Barbara Tuchman, author and historian 1912-1989
As the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence. --Mohandas K. Gandhi 1869-1948
There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. --Michel de Montaigne, essayist 1533-1592
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business. -- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author - 1902-1983
What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer - 106-43 BCE
Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence. --Henri Frederic Amiel philosopher and writer - 1821-1881
The high minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. --Aristotle, philosopher 384-322 BCE
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. --Aristotle
Tyrants cannot abide beyond the will of the people to abide them. When the people have had enough, tyrants fall --The Tao of Phoenix
and critic 1880-1956
Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government. --Jeremy Bentham, jurist and philosopher 1748-1832
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice. --Marcus Tullius Cicero
We...are not really free if we can't control our own government and its policies. And we will never do that if we remain ignorant. -- Charley Reese
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. -- Johann Wolfgang van Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher - 1749-1832
No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literary or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race. --From The Meaning Of It All by Richard P. Feynman
If you protect a man from folly, you will soon have a nation of fools. --William Penn
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. --Voltaire, philosopher 1694-1778
The will of God is the sanctuary of ignorance. --Spinoza
The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can't change your mind, because God sure isn't going to change His. --Roger Ebert, film-critic
Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt. --Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator 1833-1899
He that is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death. --Thomas Paine, Patriot
A tyrant...is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. --Plato
War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves. --Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher 1828-1910
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind. --Thomas Paine
You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists. --Abbie Hoffman
To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues. -- John Locke, philosopher - 1632-1704
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. --Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President 1882-1945
Nature's law affirm instead of prohibit. If you violate her laws, you are your own prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and hangman. --Luther Burbank, horticulturist 1849-1926
I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart, and that is softness of head. --Theodore Roosevelt
I place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. --Thomas Jefferson
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. --Franklin D. Roosevelt
Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established. --Ludwig Feuerbach, philosopher 1804-1872
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. --Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate 1879-1955
The man who prefers his country before any other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the state. They both deny that right is superior to authority. -- Lord Acton, historian 1834-1902
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. --Jimi Hendrix, musician, singer, and songwriter 1942-1970
We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't. --Frank A. Clark, writer 1911-
Your Comments Welcome. |
