Quotes To Ponder

More good quotes from centuries ago that apply to 2009:

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
-- Thomas Jefferson --

That's right, and that's precisely what socialism does.  Sadly, there are plenty of examples of this going on in America right now, today, in 2009.  I wonder how many people who support all these bailouts would still support them if they had to actually write out a check for their share of them?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant -- and free ... it expects what never was and never will be."
-- Thomas Jefferson --

"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 --

Previous generations of Americans knew these things.  They sacrificed and dug deep to preserve the freedoms we have today.  It is a tragedy of monstrous proportions that our generation has been so poorly educated and equipped with history and knowledge that we have no concept of sacrifice, and have no clue what it takes to preserve freedom.  Entitlement is a mental illness with which liberalism has subtly infected our entire nation, and as we watch the chickens come home to roost, we also watch disaster unfolding.

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
-- James Madison --

Welcome to the Obama era!

There's my two cents.