"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." --Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1775

Ronald Reagan Qoutes

"Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it and hell where they already have it." -Ronald Reagan

"Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose."
- Ronald Reagan

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
-Ronald Reagan

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
-Ronald Reagan

"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the  U.S. was too strong."- Ronald Reagan

" I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress."
-Ronald Reagan

"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination."
- Ronald Reagan

"Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
-Ronald Reagan

"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.'"
-Ronald Reagan

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."
- Ronald Reagan

" Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
- Ronald Reagan

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book."
- Ronald Reagan

"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."
-Ronald Reagan

" If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."
 -Ronald Reagan

We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed."

"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?"

— Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." 

  - Ronald Reagan

"The most dangerous myth is the demagoguery that business can be made to pay a larger share, thus relieving the individual. Politicians preaching this are either deliberately dishonest, or economically illiterate, and either one should scare us. Business doesn't pay taxes.... Only people pay taxes, and people pay as consumers every tax that is assessed against a business. Begin with the food and fiber raised in the farm, to the ore drilled in a mine, to the oil and gas from out of the ground, whatever it may be -- through the processing, through the manufacturing, on out to the retailer's license. If the tax cannot be included in the price of the product, no one along that line can stay in business."
  - Ronald Reagan

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-Thomas Jefferson

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the
wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for,
another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot
give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from
somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not
have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and
when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because
somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend,
is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing
it."

~~~~~ Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931

"The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care, which the socialists promise us and which can be obtained only by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice; it must be the freedom of our economic activity which, with the right of choice, inevitably also carries the risk and the responsibility of that right." --economist Friedrich August Hayek (1899-1992)

"The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves."- George Washington

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." - M. Gandhi

"The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery." --former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Why is Patrick Henry so cool?  Check some sample quotes.

¥ The ever famous: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

¥ "They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?"

¥        "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."

¥ "The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."

Blogpost-We actually have the best framework in place for positive influence and self- governance in the "civilized" world but somehow we've lost sight of the original American Dream. We've forgotten why we fought for freedom and why winning was so important. Capitalism is NOT the essence of freedom. Money is not the answer to democracy. The power struggles and spending going on in Washington are the result of decades of greed, illegal intervention and arrogance. The public mind has been numbed by misrepresentation and misguided efforts of professional politicians who see themselves as demigods and diplomats to the masses. The majority have forgotten what it means to serve. They're out to score points and make names for themselves. Make decrees and policies. Gain popular vote. (job security)... promote agendas that have nothing to do with the basic values and ideals we originally set out to defend.

Why is Patrick Henry so cool?  Check some sample quotes.

¥ The ever famous: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

¥ "They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?"

¥        "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."

¥ "The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."

I was born an American. I live as an American; I shall die an American; and I intend to perform the duties incumbent upon me in that character to the end of my career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard to personal consequences. What are the personal consequences?

What is the individual man with all the good or evil that may betide him, in comparison with the good and evil which may befall a great country, and in the midst of great transactions which concern that country's fate? Let the consequences be what they will, I am careless, No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer or if he fall, in the defense of the liberties and Constitution of his country.

...Daniel Webster

John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement:
"This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Especially read the last quote from 1802. When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe .Thomas Jefferson

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. Thomas Jefferson

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. Thomas Jefferson

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. Thomas Jefferson

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. Thomas Jefferson

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Thomas Jefferson

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. Thomas Jefferson

Thomas  Jefferson said in 1802:'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. 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 around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.'

"It is the primary right of men to die and kill for the land they live in,  and to punish with exceptional severity all members of their own race who have warmed their hands at the invader's hearth." Winston Churchill

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

        * From bondage to spiritual faith;
        * From spiritual faith to great courage;
        * From courage to liberty;
        * From liberty to abundance;
        * From abundance to complacency;
        * From complacency to apathy;
        * From apathy to dependence;
        * From dependence back into bondage.

Alexander Fraser Tytler
 

"The Declaration of Independence [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson

"...That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
.... from the Declaration of Independance.

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." - Patrick Henry

"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."  John Adams

--"I would rather be hated by this generation for my inflammatory speech in defense of freedom, than despised by the next for not having the courage to do so when it mattered the most." Nathan McDonnel?

"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should be doing for themselves." Abraham Lincoln

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence (OBAMACARE – mine), the money of their constituents." – James Madison

"We the people are the rightful masters of
both Congress & the courts, not to over-
throw the Constitution, but overthrow the
men who pervert the Constitution."
Abraham Lincoln

"The [U.S.] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals ... it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government ... it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government." --author and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

Want to confuse a Democrat? Use logic and the truth!

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

-Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

"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 (17 September 1859, speech in Cincinnati, OH

"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
- Mark Twain, Notebook, 1904

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have".  
Thomas Jefferson

"Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it." --President Woodrow Wilson

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." --Thomas Paine

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

— The Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

— The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

*Political Axioms *

'If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed;
If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.'

I  contend that for a nation to try to tax itself
into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket
and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Church ill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul
can  always depend on the support of Paul


A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man
which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.

Democracy must be something more than two wolves
and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
-, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money
from poor people in rich countries to rich people in
poor countries.
-Douglas Casey

Giving money and power to the government is like
giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
-, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody
endeavors to  live at the expense of everybody else.
-, French Economist (1801-1850)

Government's view of the economy could be
summed up in a few short phrases:
If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, regulate it.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
-  (1986)

I don't make jokes...
I just watch the government and report the facts.

If you think health care is expensive now,
wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
- P.J. O'Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of
taking as much money as possible from
one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics
doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
-Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe
while the legislature is in session.
-Mark Twain (1866 )

Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.
-Unknown

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal:
a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.
The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of  misery.
-

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist
is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the
effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

There is no distinctly Native American criminal class
...save Congress.
-Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-Edward Langley, Artist (1928 -1995)

AND THE BEST ONE...
A government big enough to give you everything you want,
is strong enough to take everything you have.