Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Gems of Wisdom

"Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors." --John Adams, letter to the young men of the Philadelphia, 1798

Monday, November 15, 2010

Education

"Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country." --Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America, 1788

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Wisdom of our Founders

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." --James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, 1829

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Why we should vote November 2nd

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." --Declaration of Independence, 1776

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Wisdom from our Founders

"It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect." --James Madison, 1833

Monday, October 4, 2010

Good Government

"[A] wise and frugal government...shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." --

Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Wisdom of Jefferson

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

Monday, September 20, 2010

Abe was right !!!

I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man’s rights—that each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the right of no other State, and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole.
Abraham Lincoln

Monday, September 13, 2010

"God governs in the affairs of men"

"I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth, that God governs in the Affairs of Men. And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?" --Benjamin Franklin, Motion for Prayers in the Constitutional Convention, 1787

Friday, August 27, 2010

Patriot Post

"His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect and noble. " --Thomas Jefferson, on George Washington in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones, 1814

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Patriot Speaks

"This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them." --Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Wisdom of our founders

"Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Carrington, 1787

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Wisdom of the Founding Fathers

"Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dupont de Nemours, 1816

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Education

"It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country." --Noah Webster, On Education of Youth in America, 1790

Monday, May 17, 2010

Patriot Post

"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few." --John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, 1763

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Pro Choice (abortion)or Pro Life?

                                        
 
 
Rights of choice, right of privacy, the right of self defense, and other rights claimed by some can generally be supported by the 9th amendment to the US Constitution, which says:
"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
This, however, does not permit people to act in a manner to deny others of their rights, such as the right to life.  While the Declaration of Independence is not a part of the Constitution,  it does enumerate  certain rights the Constitution was designed to protect. We all know the language,
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness ...".
   As to the issue of abortion, the big question is, "When does life begin?"  Since the Constitution does not address this question, one will need to look elsewhere for the answer, and since the signers of the Declaration believed there is a Creator,  the scriptures of the Old Testament recognized as being God inspired  by the major religions of western civilization,  would seem a proper place to find an answer.
The Book of The Prophet Jeremiah, Chapter 1, verse 5, says:
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."
This statement by the Creator to Jeremiah clearly says that life begins before conception , and,  therefore, deserves to be protected by the government of a just society. 

                                            Editorial by Everett Slaughter

Friday, March 12, 2010

Congress hasn't changed

"If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected." --Thomas Jefferson, autobiography, 1821

Monday, February 15, 2010

Voting Obligation

"Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual -- or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country." --Samuel Adams, in the Boston Gazette, 1781