More Quotes To Ponder

Here are a few more great quotes (via Patriot Post) to think about in today's context:

"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts."
-- Patrick Henry --

Boy, does this ring true today, or what?  In my opinion, this quote highlights the truth about Kool-Aid slurping Obots who closed their eyes to the radical liberalism of Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats.  Even now, as the country goes into the tank because of their messiah, they keep their eyes firmly shut.  Sad.

"History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened."
-- Benjamin Franklin --

Franklin addresses the consequences of socialism here.  By their very definition, socialist nations favor one part of that nation to the detriment of another, and Franklin is right that history is filled with failed socialist states (in fact, I challenge you to name one successful one!).  The question is how far we allow America to go down the road to socialism, and how weakened we will become before doing anything about it.

"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."
-- George Washington --

"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired."
-- Alexander Hamilton --

Licentiousness: 'unrestrained by law or morality'.  Sounds like today's Democrats to me, on both counts.  Since these words were spoken roughly 200 years ago, this is apparently an observation of human nature itself, and a warning about those who embody that piece of human nature.  Today's Democrats are nothing new; the problem is that today's Democrats are in charge of our government, and that spells big trouble for all the rest of us.

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

To me, this addresses the utter failure of our free press.  The establishment of a free press was one of the core principles of the Founders for precisely this reason.  A free press is supposed to probe, question, and hold accountable the actions and words of politicians for the express purpose of protecting the liberty of the people.  As Washington and Hamilton said above, people in positions of power tend to get corrupted by it, and a free press helps keep that corruption to a minimum.  What we see today is the voluntary abdication of our media to do their Constitutionally-proscribed job to protect the liberty of the people by rooting out corruption.  They have completely failed, and their failing is going to cause greater and greater problems as time goes on, because the people will not be informed as to the true words and actions of our politicians.  We saw this during the campaign, and we've seen it throughout the Obama administration's first few weeks.  I expect it will only get worse, until such time as the 'new media' have as much clout as the 'old media', but there's no guarantee that will ever happen.

There's my two cents.