Teddy Roosevelt [Quote]

I ganked this from a Facebook friend's profile.

It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out where the strong man stumbles, or the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Joel, if you're reading this, thanks for the good words.

The Fatal Attraction of Government [Quote]

"The fatal attraction of government is that it allows busybodies to impose decisions on others without paying any price themselves. That enables them to act as if there were no price, even when there are ruinous prices – paid by others"
-- Thomas Sowell.

On the Individual Mandate [Quote]

"If a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house."

-Barack H. Obama

The Evolution of Thought

The following are four quotes from founding father Thomas Jefferson on the nation's credit and the wisdom of borrowing money.

"Though much an enemy to the system of borrowing, yet I feel strongly the necessity of preserving the power to borrow. Without this, we might be overwhelmed by another nation, merely by the force of its credit." --Thomas Jefferson to the Commissioners of the Treasury, 1788. ME 6:423

"I am anxious about everything which may affect our credit. My wish would be, to possess it in the highest degree, but to use it little. Were we without credit, we might be crushed by a nation of much inferior resources, but possessing higher credit." --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1788. ME 6:453

"Though I am an enemy to the using our credit but under absolute necessity, yet the possessing a good credit I consider as indispensable in the present system of carrying on war. The existence of a nation having no credit is always precarious." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 6:455

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars could be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:64

In 1788, Jefferson saw credit as a tool to be used sparingly in times of crisis, especially when other nations use their large credit lines against us to build armies and make war. He felt borrowing money was a necessary evil, and thought that a nation should work hard to preserve a good credit rating.

By 1798, his thoughts had evolved to the point where he no longer thought government could be trusted with the power to borrow. He realized that credit allowed government to run wild, and place its population in untenable situations, most importantly war. He felt so strongly that he wished for a constitutional amendment to strip the power to borrow from our federal government.

Jefferson foresaw what could happen to a nation who's government had access to credit. Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been conducted totally on the national credit card. Thousands of American soldiers have lost their lives in these wars, and many more permanently injured. The cost of these wars has significantly expanded our national debt, placing our nation at the mercy of the financial system, which as we have all learned is a complete disaster.

If can learn anything from the current Greek debt crisis, as well as America's own experience, its that governments can and will borrow a nation past the breaking point. Whether it is done for social programs or to conduct senseless wars, government's national tendency is towards debt, which is passed on generation to generation, weakening our nation and our economy, and enslaving us all through our system of credit.

Quote

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves.

- Thomas Jefferson

Quote: James Madison

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

- James Madison

[via FEE]

Abe Lincoln, White Supremacist

I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

-Abraham Lincoln

Question

How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?

-Milton Friedman

Quote

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

-Likely more than one author

Quote

When is modern science going to find a cure for a woman's mouth?

-Dr. Leo Spaceman

Quote: George Orwell

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

Quote: Thomas Jefferson

TJ had it figured out 200 years ago.

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. No generation should contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence. For if could, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generations. It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes and consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

Wish we had more people like him around today.

Quote: Frederic Bastiat

This came up in a discussion about the Sixteenth Amendment:

As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious. To know this, it is hardly necessary to examine what transpires in the French and English legislatures; merely to understand the issue is to know the answer.

-Frederic Bastiat

Well said, brother, well said.