Greetings!
Some quotes to think about:
"If a Nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization,
it expects what never was and never will be...if we are to guard against
ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be
informed."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of
true liberty."
- James Madison
"Never believe in anything until it has been officially denied"
- Otto von Bismarck
"Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
- Lord Acton
"Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order."
- John V. Lindsay
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy."
- Ayn Rand
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
- George Bernard Shaw
"It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."
- Alfred Adler
"An armed society is a polite society."
- Robert A. Heinlein
"You've been given a Republic, if you can keep it"
- George Washington
"Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic, but will they keep it?
Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom?
Material abundance without character is the path of destruction."
- Thomas Jefferson
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency,
first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks...will deprive the people of all property
until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers
conquered... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to
the people, to whom it properly belongs."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Footnote: the issue of currency of the United States is currently
controlled by the Federal Reserve Bank - a privately held bank)
"The best thing that government can do [for the economy] is get out of the way."
- Milton Friedman (Nobel Prizewinner in Economics)
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! And, Like fire,
it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
- George Washington
"Only the State legally obtains its revenue by coercion."
- Murray Rothbard
"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open
it and remove all doubt."
- Abraham Lincoln
"The problem with this country is that a man can live his entire life without
knowing whether or not he is a coward."
- Poet John Berryman
"Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils."
- Hector Berlioz
"Laws do not persuade just because they threaten."
- Seneca (65 C.E.)
"The right to be heard does not include the right to be taken seriously."
- Hubert H. Humphrey
"My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people:
those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be
in the first group; there was less competition there."
- Indira Gandhi
"Imagination is more important than knowledge"
- Albert Einstein
"Things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler"
- Albert Einstein
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and
I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein
"Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking,
honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the
publicity. But then, we elected them."
- Lily Tomlin
"Philosophical habits of mind do not come quicker through fiber optics.
Clear thinking is not aided by better dot resolution. Understanding
ourselves and feeling for others does not come with a software upgrade."
- Linda Ray Pratt
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of
tyranny is no virtue."
- Barry Goldwater
"I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my
country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray
my country."
- E. M. Forster
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery?"
- Patrick Henry
"Time makes more converts than reason."
- Thomas Paine
"The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity."
- Unknown
"Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality."
- Jules de Gaultier
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
- Arthur C. Clarke
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government]
those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations,
perverted it into tyranny."
- Thomas Jefferson (Bill for the More General diffusion of Knowledge 1778)
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion"
- Edmund Burke
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin (Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759)
Compare the preceeding two quotes to these two recent quotes:
=============================================================
"And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When
personal liberties are being abused, you have to move to limit them.
That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public
housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more
things like that to try to make people safer in their communities."
- U.S. President Bill Clinton (MTV's "Enough is Enough" 4/19/94)
"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to
restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were
told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated,
that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will
pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every
man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights
will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to
them by their world government."
- Henry Kissinger (May 21, 1992)
"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe
to be unpopular."
- Adlai Stevenson
"The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the
amount of security enjoyed by minorities."
- Lord Acton (The History of Freedom in Antiquity - 1877)
"A wise person makes his own decisions, a weak one obeys public opinion."
- Chinese proverb
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas
are interested in dogs."
- P.J. O'Rourke
"He is able who thinks he is able."
- Buddha
"Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it"
- James Baldwin
"If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much."
-Nikola Tesla
"It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dreams of yesterday
are the hopes of today and the reality of tomorrow"
- Robert H. Goddard
"When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl!"
[When cryptography is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy!", ROT-13
encrypted]
- Brad Templeton of ClariNet
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."
- A. J. Liebling
"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough
to take it all away."
- Barry Goldwater
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in
its abuses."
- Andrew Jackson (Veto of the Bank Bill, 1832)
"Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy."
- Orson Welles
"A state in which only the police are armed is known as a police state"
- Unknown
"Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship."
- Harry S. Truman
"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look
upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."
- Mohandas K. Gandhi (An Autobiography, pg 446)
"Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation,
that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defence? Where is the
difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our
own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If
our defence be the_real_object of having those arms, in whose hands can
they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our
own hands?"
- Patrick Henry (in Debates in the Several State Conventions on the
Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Jonathan Elliot, ed.1836,v3,p.168)
"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the
American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence. From the
hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events occurences and
tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security and happiness, the rifle
and pistol are equally indispensable. The very atmosphere of firearms
everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor
with all that's good."
- George Washington in a speech to Congress, January 7, 1790.
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there
is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right
of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government..."
- Alexander Hamilton (The Federalist #28 ))
"...arms...discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and
preserve order in the world as well as property. ...Horrid mischief
would ensue were the law-abiding deprived the use of them."
- Thomas Paine
"Americans need not fear the federal government because they enjoy the
advantage of being armed, which you possess over the people of almost
every other nation."
- James Madison
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert
that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by
themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the
people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
- George Mason
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson (Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers,
334 C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950)
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone
who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it
but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined...The
great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might
have a gun."
- Patrick Henry
"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 their revolutionary right to dismember
it or overthrow it."
- Abraham Lincoln (4 April 1861)
"History has proven that whoever lays down their armaments deserves
whatever they get."
- Jeff Cooper
"...and if you don't have a sword, better sell your clothes and buy one."
- Jesus Christ (Luke 22:36)
"All warfare is based on deception"
- Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
"One hundred rounds do not constitute fire power. One hit constitutes fire power."
- General Merritt Edson, U.S. Marine Corps
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
predicting the end of the world has not been found agreeable to
actual experience."
- Edward Gibbon (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)
"Day-by-day, case-by-case, the Supreme Court is busy designing a Constitution
for a country I do not recognize."
- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready
to do violence on their behalf."
- George Orwell
"The irony of the information age is that it has given new respectability to
uninformed opinion."
- John Lawton, 1995
"There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes, and
the other is the Bill of Rights."
- Major General Smedley Butler, U.S. Marine Corps 1930
"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those
who don't have it."
- George Bernard Shaw
"If you don't mind being where you are, you are not lost."
- Bruce Truter
"If one does not fail at times, one has not challenged himself sufficiently."
- Ferdinand Porsche
"Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this:
The communist, seeing the rich man and his fine home, says: "No man should have
so much." The capitalist, seeing the same thing, says: "All men should have as much."
- Phelps Adams
"The two pillars of 'political correctness' are:
(a) willful ignorance, and (b) a steadfast refusal to face the truth."
- George MacDonald Fraser
"Nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self; for what we wish, we readily believe."
- Demosthenes
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from
the political, economic, and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes
vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the
truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the
greatest enemy of the State.
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels (Propaganda Minister, Nazi Germany)
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge."
- Daniel Boorstin
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Hope this wasn't too long....
Best wishes,
Bawko
