Limited Government and the Founding Principles of our Country
by Dr. David McKalip - March 26, 2010 - Edison Student Republican/Tea Party Rally
Edison State College - Charlotte Campus - Punta Gorda, FL
Today I want to talk about America - where we came from and why we are here.
First, I want to challenge you to do more than you ever thought you could to fight for America - because this fight is your last chance to pass liberty on to your children. "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and grandchildren what it was once like in the United States were men were free." Regan.
You are going to need to fight now - everywhere, everyday, in ways you never though possible - and I don't mean violently - I mean by using those rights given to you by our forefathers - speech, assembly, petition of government, elections - and using these tools and resources our forefathers ensured we would keep our own property and liberty.
What is America? Why is it so special? It respects individual rights above all else. In America, government's only purpose was to protect the individual. That is vastly different than all other governments in history past, present and future. When America was formed, this was new. All other governments have been designed to subjugate man to the state as a means to define the role of man as related to the state.
The American Revolution was there not a small "r" "revolution" it was a large "R" revolution - a true revolution of thought; The individual is supreme and rules over his government and creates his government to protect his individual rights.
What an amazing concept - the concept of man as the supreme being in society - as an individual - surprisingly - has deep roots in Christian faith and catholic religion - you may be surprised. If you are in the Catholic church, you may have heard much about "Social Justice". Sadly a secular definition of social justice used by big government to redistribute wealth and define mans role for him, again in relation to the State.
The Catholic definition of Social Justice can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and is rather different: "1928 Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social Justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.
Respect for the Human Person 1929 - Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him: "What is at stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt." (John Paul II)
Jesus Christ himself told us how important individual dignity and freedom was in so many ways in his own life among us on earth. Jesus Christ said: "Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all they heart, and with all they soul, and with all they mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
- Love your neighbor as yourself - "LOVE YOURSELF"
- AND THIS LAW IS EQUAL TO LOVING GOD!
- What more profound endorsement of individual dignity can you find?
Natural rights are the most critical and the most basic concept you must be aware. It is the concept that your rights are NATURAL - you are born with them. Merely by being a human being - with your first breath - you have rights. They are endowed in you by nature and nature's god (As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence).
Let's hear what John Locke said about Natural Rights: "The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the trust put in it..."
These are critical concepts. Natural liberty means we are not under the will of man. We are only under legislative authority that MEN CREATE - BY THEIR OWN CONSENT. Trust is required by the governed who gave their consent to form a government.
Clearly, we have strayed far off this path today. Certainly there is no trust in our government as it engages in wars without following the laws the governed established to declare war (no congressional authority); it creates a welfare and entitlement state through Medicare and Social Security based on illegitimate promises to pay for medical and retirement expenses of the elderly - but as it fails is ready to embark on massive health care rationing resulting in early death and suffering.
It builds massive debt that makes our children less secure as we make them slaves to foreign nations and shadowy bankers who run the Federal Reserve and won't open their books to us! Eisenhower warned us of this path in his farewell address. "We can not mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."
Clearly, the debt alone and the contempt our elected officials have for individual Americans is enough for us to take back control of our government through the many peaceful means at our disposal.
So, with our natural rights comes our most basic natural right of all - our individual liberty. That most precious of features of our lives; the right to live free to determine our own destiny as Locke further stated: "...a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconsistent, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary, will of another man: as freedom of nature is, to be under no other restraint but the law of nature."
George Washington told us: "It will be found an unwise and foolish jealously to deprive a man of his liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it." And, Jefferson then affirmed the sole purpose of government as he said it should be "A frugal Government, which 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 form the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. this is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."
Yet it is our current, untrustworthy government that has mandated that we must buy a health insurance product defined, created and administered by unaccountable bureaucrats from large insurance corporations certainly in an unholy alliance with the same banking system that is systematically destroying our currency.
The same government tells us we can't grow a bushel of corn in our own back yard due to a faulty interpretation of the Founder's interstate commerce clause.
The same government will soon seek to tell us what education we can have, what job we can do, where we may live and what we may earn and how many hours we may work as they take control through the Student Loan programs and the unions.
Again - we have much to fight and must fight with the peaceful ferocity of those who see Hitler moving in on Stalingrad, of those who see their fellow man - their black brother - unable to sit at a lunch counter - of those who refused to live under the tyrannical and arbitrary rule of a British King across in a distant land across a wide ocean. We must fight to be free again America.
So based on our natural rights that grand us our individual liberty, our Founders created a government that was based on one of the most brilliant documents in the history of Mankind - perhaps to never be surpassed - it created a limited government.
Our preamble of our constitution spells out the sole purpose of our government: "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Everything that follows in that constitution of our country - that bedrock that is the foundation of ANY lasting and moral success we have ever had - everything that follows is predicated on the concept that our government is designed to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity - OUR CHILDREN!
People also confuse the concept of the "General Welfare" in the constitution with that of the "welfare state" that - the same state that mistakenly believes only it can provide for any quality and good outcome in our life - which it - the state - establishes what you may have. But that is nonsense and an intentional misrepresentation - that is because our founders knew that the general welfare - the most good - comes from those actions of individual men working in a free market - not in a welfare state. Thus, we were warned by Ronald Reagan: "There can be no security anywhere int he free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation."
Yet here we stand - our government tells us they will create a health care system that will take us from cradle to grave - while installing a rationing system that will prevent many lives and will end others early.
A failed system of government run schools with our children performing far below their potential in most cases and a deeply entrenched teachers union demanding ever increasing dollars and no accountability to the parents whose children they indoctrinate through government approved curricula.
A system of welfare and Medicaid and public housing that locks people in poverty for generations - that steals the wealth and potential of so many - that creates a dependent class of voters that are exactly in the underclass position where government will never let them escape for fear of losing their power.
Benjamin Franklin was right to warn us on these two things:
1) "When people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic" and more telling
2) "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
We should learn from Franklin that the safety of the welfare state is not worth the sacrifice of our liberty to produce for ourselves.
So our natural rights brought us our individual liberty and we created a limited government - and have done so with another basic founding principle of our country - they would operate with the consent of the governed!
NO GOVERNMENT THAT PROTECTS LIBERTY EXISTS WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THOSE WHO CREATED IT. No other government is just and moral.
The government must not act without the trust and agreement of the people.
It is not the job of a small and arrogant elite group of men to decide the living conditions of individuals or the future of their children.
That is what Ronald Reagan meant when he warned (and This is the issue this election): "Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lvies for us better than we can plan them ourselves."
Yet here we stand. The President of the United States has committed U.S. forces to war in another distant land - Libya - at the behest of 15 unelected and unaccountable world leaders sitting on the UN Security Council - acting without the consent of the governed. He has refused to seek the approval of congress as required by the war Power s Revolution of 1973 or even to ask Congress to declare war as required by Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution.
A massive corporate and government take over of health care happens over the objections of the private sector taxpayers who support them and that put their children in debt - while disregarding the consent of those who must support them.
It is anticipation of such outrageous acts that led our Founders to create a country where men could rely on the rule of LAW - not the arbitrary rule of man who would govern at their whim - who would awaken one morning for instance and decide to fire 114 tomahawk cruise missiles at a foreign country. John Adams celebrated, as he put it, "a government of laws and not men". It was John Madison who recognized the dangers of a ruling elite when he stated: "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments by those IN POWER than by violent and sudden usurpation".
Thus Madison and our Founders created a limited government with a system of laws that would be created in a democratic process and would only be able to apply itself to a very limited set of areas that its enumerated powers allowed under the constitution.
Modern day philosopher and Economist and Stanford Professor Thomas Sowell put it succinctly when he stated: "The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best."
The Founders knew that it is you, the individual American, who knows what is best in their lives - not an elite group of government officials.
Thus, here we stand. A health care law that NO law. - It is pure lawlessness.
Congress delegates away its constitutional prerogatives for law making to the executive branch to control the medical care you rely on for your life, to 159 new government agencies or programs; provides hundreds of new areas that will be at the arbitrary whim of the Secretary of Health and Human service - the new /Queen Kathryn Sebelius. All of her decisions will be final and there will be no right to appeal to the Supreme Court - LAWLESSNESS.
Here we stand - involve din perpetual war at the behest of an arrogant elite, fighting desperately to maintain the economic house of cards that the Federal reserve and the bankers have built through
the debt, destruction and artificial economic activity created by endless war.
Do they not remember what John Madison told us in 1795: "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continued warfare." He called it the germ of all enemies of liberty: endless debt and taxation and subjugation of man to a government growing ever more powerful (patriot act, etc....).
Eisenhower warned us against the establishment of a military industrial complex AND also against allowing our public polity to be controlled by a scientific and technological elite.
At what point do we peacefully rise up against lawlessness and re-establish the rule of law that is our birthright?
You see; it is the rule of law that allows us to protect another of our most fundamental rights: our rights to own private property. This right is recognized as one of the most fundamental and nece3ssary ingredient of a free society. The knowledge and security to know that what you work for perhaps your entire life - is yours. It is not for the state that you work to bring home money, or possess property or intellectual capacity. You are not renting these things from the government. You are not granted the right to keep a small portion or any portion of property you earn at eh behest of the state.
The security of private property creates the incentive to continue to work. To produce goods and services that you can trade with others. This is the basis of a free society. It is these property rights that are protected by our constitution. They form the basis of our free market system.
Yet here we stand. Larger and larger percentages of your income are taken for the federal, state and local government.
The government removes your income to place into a social security and Medicare trust fund and then creates the conditions so that there can be no other means of health insurance for those above 65 and less money to be saved by individuals to secure their own retirement for themselves. They then take those trust funds and spend them on a bridge to no where and replace them with worthless IOU's in a filing cabinet somewhere in West Virginia.
The same government will steal the private property of the poor and unconnected through eminent domain laws so that it may give that property to a government or a well connected corporate crony. The black community is most severely affected by this phenomenon and they should recognize how severely they are being used and abused by the progressives and collectivists in this and so many other ways and assert their true right to secure their own property and posterity through the fundamental rights I am describing today.
It is these property rights that form the basis of our free market system - it is that free market system that is the true basis of prosperity. No government can plan a prosperous economy - the record is clear that centralized economic planning causes debt, currency of no value, suffering and less freedom.
The free market was described this way by the noted economist and ethicist Murray Rothbard: "Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at."
We thus see the importance of private property in a society for a free market. If you don't own your property - you can't exchange it. Adam Smith said it best "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest" - and that self interest improves society for all - the general welfare - as good sand services are provided, innovation spreads and competition creates widespread availability and lower prices.
Nobel winning economist Milton Friedman stated "So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.
Yet here we stand.
Automobile companies owned by the government!
Banks owned by the government - IN AMERICA!
Vast tracts of land owned by the federal government!
A health care system being planned where doctors will be assigned a budget for medical care of their patients and will be penalized financially if they spend a penny more than approved!
None of this is the free market.
This is control of our lives through the government and the corporations that live in an unholy alliance with them. This is collectivism and to be more precise - this is fascism - control of society through government approved corporate structures.
It is because of the natural proclivity of governments to gain power and liberty to yield (Jefferson) that our Founders created the final principle I will describe - equal justice.
This is the concept that the law will apply equally to all men. That the justice system - our courts and the remainder of the government - will not look the other way for those who are considered more special. They will not let one man kill and another to be executed for murder.
It is this sense of equal justice that finally ended the horrendous injuustice3 of slavery in our country. That stated that no man was better merely because of the color of his skin. Thus Abraham Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation in 1863 and called upon their equal acceptance in society.
The road remained hard and involved hundreds of thousands dead in a civil war before the thirteenth amendment was finally added to the constitution stating in 1865: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, shall exist within the United States."
The battle continued and Americans rose up and were inspired by the words and actions of Martin Luther King and those who followed PEACEFULLY - Peaceful revolution - and he said to us "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Yet here we stand. Thousands of waivers from complying with Obamacare for well connected unions, corporations and state governments - unequal justice.
Oil drilling bans in the gulf of Mexico for American companies while foreign companies are allowed to drill.
A cap and tax system that will pose a massive economic burden for low and middle income Americans while enriching well connected corporations, bankers and politicians.
The list is endless.
So this is the question for you my fellow Americans. Where do YOU stand? What will YOU do? Will you fight for these founding principles - individual liberty and natural rights? A limited government that has the consent of the governed? A free market based in property rights? Government that requires that those elected rule through law and apply justice equally.
Well if you want that .... you are going to have to fight!
The time has come where going to rallies and blogging on the internet can only go so far. The time has come to:
a) educate your families - the ones you love so much you don't want to breach the peace of your familial escape from the world. Call them to action!
b) educate your co-workers. Silence is death of freedom. You can remain silent no more - we no longer have the luxury.
c) demand change by your government - you must follow what they do every day now. You must contact them endlessly - they fear you. 95% of elected officials want one thing only - to stay in office. Let them know they stay in office only when you CONSENT to what they are doing. I guarantee you that the collectivist enemies have us out-manned, outgunned and outspent. While their resources are bigger and their activist pool is larger, we have what they don't have - the vast majority of the American People on the side of liberty - they must simply be mobilized.
I call on each one of you to work - every day - in some way for liberty - Blogs; call your congressman or state rep.; write a letter to the editor; evaluate a government program's budget and find the fate and reveal it.
I call on you to be independent of the government. When the easier path is to take a government subsidy or some special government treatment to help your business prosper - then reject it. Take the harder independent path and tell the government to give their money back to the taxpayers and their power back to the people.
I make a special call to those who are receiving or about to receive Medicare and Social Security. Fight for an end to these programs. Your grandchildren are in danger. Your benefits should be kept - you should keep what you paid for - but make no mistake - the benefits you are getting are far higher than you ever paid in - even with interest. We must reset the health care economy and allow you to keep the meager Medicare benefits the government gives you and seek doctors who will give you better service and care OUTSIDE of Medicare - but they may charge you a small amount so they too can keep their doors open.
To the young - LEARN. Grow in intellect. Resist the liberal nonsense you hear every day in the classroom. Go out and start small businesses and avoid the easy government job or government load - get a private loan if you can find one.
There is so much more to do. I know this though - the American Experiment is the greatest advance in the history of mankind. If it fails now, we will descend into a new dark ages and poverty, scarcity, brutality and arbitrary dictators will rule our lives.
But, I am hopeful, because you are here my friends. And, I know you will fight for freedom now, so we won't lose it forever.
Posted April 6, 2011
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I compiled these quotes on Freedom and Tyranny in 2008 for Independence Day. With Liberty rising again in America, I hope they are useful to you. Today we celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the 9/12 project on March 13, 2009. Government now holds Americans in contempt and has Americans on our backs their boots on the throats. As we move forward in the LIBERTY MOVEMENT, let’s resolve to take back our country by January 2013 and put government back in its rightful place: on its knees before Americans - begging for our favor.
Yours in Liberty, David McKalip, M.D. March 13, 2010.
Freedom of the individual is at the core of the founding of America. As we celebrate the recognition and claiming of our right to individual freedom, consider the following observations on Freedom versus Tyranny. Our country appears on the cusp of abandoning the primacy of individual freedom in favor of the tyranny that comes from the empowerment of others over their own lives. Justifications of achieving “collective good” and “social justice” are other ways of describing the antithesis of Freedom: Socialism. David McKalip, M.D., July 4, 2008 | ||
Freedom Says…. | Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776 When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature. He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states: For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: For imposing taxes on us without our consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses: For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies: For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments: For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Rights Inspired By the Quest for Freedom Bill of Rights Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or the people. | Tyranny says… |
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.John Adams Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty. “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic if you can keep it” Benjamin Franklin Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.Alexis de Tocqueville The basis of a democratic state is liberty. Aristotle Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.Thomas Sowell That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselvesThomas Jefferson The message is clear, if we lose our love of liberty and our manners become corrupt, character is lost and so is the Republic.Ron Paul America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed it ourselves. Abraham Lincoln I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!Barry Goldwater It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people to govern others. Every man is the best, the most responsible, Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.George Bernard Shaw Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Lord Acton Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner.”John F Kennedy at the Berlin Wall Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. Albert Einstein But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.John Adams No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.Alexander Hamilton Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. Thomas Jefferson Capitalism is what people do if you leave them alone.Kenneth Minogue, Professor, LondonSchool of Economics The vicissitudes of history, however, have not dissuaded them from their earnest search for a "third way" between socialism and capitalism, namely socialism. Father Richard John Neuhaus I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature.Sidney Hook …if we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.” “Coercion occurs when one man's actions are made to serve another man's will, not for his own but for the other's purpose.”Friedrich A. Hayek Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual). It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason. Lord Acton Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them. Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent... the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much. A casual acceptance of the principle behind high taxation, with an income tax and an inheritance tax, is incompatible with a principled belief in a true Republic.Ron Paul A government can be compared to our lungs. Our lungs are best when we don't realize they are helping us breathe. It is when we are constantly aware of our lungs that we know they have come down with an illness. I have little interest in streamlining government or making it more efficient for I mean to reduce its size.Barry Goldwater Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.Ronald Reagan How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin. If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other. Carl Schurz I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. If I had to give a definition of capitalism I would say: the process whereby American girls turn into American women.Christopher Hampton What kind of society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system.Milton Friedman Contrary to the vulgar belief that men are motivated primarily by materialistic considerations, we now see the capitalist system being discredited and destroyed all over the world, even though this system has given men the greatest material comforts.Ayn Rand It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.Adam Smith on social benefits of capitalism By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is … led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.Adam Smith Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on "income distribution," the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.”Thomas Sowell 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 As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Abraham Lincoln Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people's liberty's teeth. George Washington Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. George Washington 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 Live Free or DieNew HampshireState Motto The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure. Thomas Jefferson Truth : the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death. Richard Childers The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech. Justice Anthony Kennedy It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error. "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 exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it. Abraham Lincoln We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.Winston Churchill History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Milton Freedman Contrary to the vulgar belief that men are motivated primarily by materialistic considerations, we now see the capitalist system being discredited and destroyed all over the world, even though this system has given men the greatest material comforts. Ayn Rand It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.Thomas Jefferson Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master. What county can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance. Thomas Jefferson The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property. To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. Robert Louis Stevenson I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. Thomas Jefferson The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me. Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty. Benjamin Franklin Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. John Adams There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder. Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values. From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind. A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air however slight lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. William O. Douglas, Justice of the U.S Supreme Court
| I desire what is good. Therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor. King George III While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. Vladimir Lenin Democracy is the road to socialism. Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism. The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism. Private ownership of land shall be abolished forever….All land…shall become the property of the whole people, and pass into the use of those who cultivate it. Decree on Land, Soviet Russia, 1917 It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel. Vladimir Lenin Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing. No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses. It is true that liberty is precious - so precious that it must be rationed. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. Equality means nothing unless incorporated into the institutions. The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand. Karl Marx In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality. Karl Marx For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him. Karl Marx While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. Vladimir Lenin The truth is that men are tired of liberty. Benito Mussolini All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. Benito Mussolini The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property. Karl Marx Hallelujah, I’m a Bum! Hallelujah, bum again! Hallelujah, give us a handout! To revive us again!Industrial Workers of the Work Songbook (1908) They are no longer human beings…They are really cogs in some terrible human machine. There is taking place a dehumanization of the people workgin in the Soviet Apparatus…Nikolai Bukharin, 1935 They pretend to Pay Us, We pretend to work.Anon. Polish saying in Solidarity Movement. Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. Benito Mussolini he keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative. Benito Mussolini From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. Karl Marx Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English. The great mass of the people are interested in only three things – food, water and clothing. A politician in a district such as mine sees to it that his people get these things. If he does, then he doesn’t have to worry about their loyalty and support. Martin Lomasney, Boston Ward Boss. It was said that a $1 a day was not enough to support a wife and children. But is not $1 a day enough to buy bread?….a man that can’t live on bread is not fit to live.Rev.Henry Ward Beacher preached during national rail strike, 1877. The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation. A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. Whoever has a pension for his old age is far more content and far easier to handle than one who has no such prospect…Social Security has certainly made the masses less independent everywhere Otto Von Bismarck Let some people get rich first. Deng Xiaoping The minority yields to the majority! Deng Xiaoping To be for oneself is to be almost nothing.B.F. Skinner in “Beyond Freedom and Dignitiy” The overthrow of capitalism is the object of the Socialist Party Socialist leader Eugene Debs, 1904 Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole. Mao Tse-Tung There is a serious tendency toward capitalism among the well-to-do peasants. Mao Tse-Tung Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away. Fidel Castro They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America? Fidel Castro When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use. The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. Vladimir Lenin The Socialist party comprehends the magnitude of its task and has the patience of preliminary defeat and the faith of ultimate victory. Eugene Debs The only real power comes out of a long rifle. We need the real, nation-wide terror which reinvigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory.Vladimir Lenin Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy. Mao Tse-Tung The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of flowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others. How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think. The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses. As soon as by one's own propaganda even a glimpse of right on the other side is admitted, the cause for doubting one's own right is laid. Literature must become party literature. Down with unpartisan litterateurs! Down with the superman of literature! Literature must become a part of the general cause of the proletariat.Vladimir Lenin The masses are far more likely to believe a big lie than several small ones.Adolph Hitler The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.Vladimir Lenin By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise. It is not truth that matters, but victory. I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few. It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge. Methods, art and processes to employ for the interrogation of heretics, believers (followers of heretics) and their accomplices.Bernard Gui, the Inquisitor’s handbook, 1332 Those who are merely under the suspicion of heresy shall be smitten with the sword of anathema and shunned by everyone until they make suitable amends, unless they prove their own innocence…If they have persisted in their excommunication for one year, they shall be condemned as heretics.Fourth Lateran Council Canon (1215) leading to the inquisition. But to want to affirm that the Sun in very truth is at the centre of the universe…is a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians but also to injure our holy faith by contradicting the Scriptures. Robert Bellarmino, Cardinal Inquisitor of the Holy Office. They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. One man with a gun can control 100 without one. Indeed there is an urgent need for negro slaves…Let ships go there and bring away as many male and female Negroes as possible….Judge Alonso de Zuazo, 1518 Representatives …. shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and … three fifths of all other Persons. Original Article I of US Constitution Invalidated by 13th and 16th Amendment. We have beat the rebels, beat ‘em in a set battle and I assure you ….losing very few of our own and destroying a good number of those vermin British Colonel Henry Seymour Conway, reporting on battle of Culloden ,1746 Scottish Jacobite Rebellion. For several days they killed man, wife and child many miles from the field of battle. Rev. James Hay on British barbarities during Scottish Jabobite Rebellion, 1746 Once vigorous measures appear to be the only means left of bringing the Americans to a due submission to the mother country, the colonies will submit. An extensive empire must be supported by a refined system of policy and oppression: in the centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in resources; a swift and easy communication with the extreme parts; fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army to inspire fear without provoking discontent and despair.Edward Gibbon, 1788 “The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire”. Thought an Allegory of British empire. To the King alone belongs the sovereign power in his kingdom. He is accountable to God alone for the exercise of supreme power. The bond which unites the king and the nation is indissoluble by its very nature.Chretien-Francois de Lamoignon, minister of Louis XVI. I have come too late; men are too enlightened; there is nothing great left to do….look at Alexander…proclaimed to people as son of Jupiter…if I declared myself today the son of the eternal Father, there is no fishwife who would not hiss at me….Napolean day after he crowned himself Emperor, 1804. So he too is nothing but a man. Now he also will trample all human rights underfoot, and only pander to his own ambition; he will place himself above everyone else and become a tyrant.Ludwig von Beethoven on hearing that Napoleon had declared himself emperor. The universities are available only to those who share my revolutionary beliefs.Fidel Castro Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.Vladimir Lenin If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years. So I propose the creation of a non-partisan Democracy Endowment….. Let me be clear: this is a non-partisan endowment for our common democracy. You can’t give to any one party; you can’t give to any one candidate. Al Gore The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. Karl Marx Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Mao Tse-Tung This is the principle reason why Communist cadres at all levels resort to desperate, barbaric practices of forcing artificial abortion and sterilization, and killing infants…In 1983, all women who had just given birth to their second child were sterilized. Those who resisted were taken to the township and locked up for several daysHarry Wu, Testimony to Congress 2001 It costs nothing to ensure that patients see a doctor within two weeks, as the government has insisted, but what is the point if they then have to wait about three months for treatment with a worn-out radiotherapy machine?British Cancer Specialist on high death rate from cancer under Socialized Medicine. ..Avoiding 300 million births "means we averted 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005…Su Wei, senior Chinese official on climate Benefits of One Child Policy The day of individual happiness has passed.
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