“All we have of freedom - all we use or know - This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago”

"Rudyard Kipling"

Always pondering Jerry.
Colin.

A few of my faves:

The tree of liberty only grows when watered by the blood of tyrants.

--Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac


It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.

--John Philpot Curran


A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides.

--Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged


Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.

--Woody Guthrie


The road to tyranny, we must never forget, is the destruction of the truth.

--William Jefferson Clinton


We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized...I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.

--Gaius Petronius (~27-66 A.D.)


A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned.

--Thomas Jefferson


Some of the most elaborate solutions do nothing to improve productivity.

--Unknown


Nothing in the world can take
The place of Persistence.
Talent will not; Nothing is more
Common than unsuccessful
Men with talent; Genius will not;
Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education alone will not;
The world is full
of educated derelicts.
Persistence and Determination
Alone are omnipotent.

--Calvin Coolidge


If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm..

--Vince Lombardi


It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

--Jonathan Swift


Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

--Benjamin Franklin

"If a nation expects to be ignorant -- and free -- in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson

But the sad thing is that we've allowed the "two" parties to work together to take our freedoms.  They've allowed the destruction of our economy in order to gain more power.  They've stood witness and been party to the murder of the middle-class.  They've caused divisiveness in our once unified nation.  They've spread suspicion amongst the citizens.  They've shown contempt for the laws they've imposed upon us.  They have no idea what it's like to have to go earn a paycheck in order just to get by, while the government keeps taking more and more of it, making it impossible to actually get ahead.  But yet ever two years people go and vote for the same people that have been described above.  It's pointless to complain about it while most voters have been willing accomplices in the destruction of our nation.  Just remember the "lesser of two evils" is still pretty fucking evil.

Brew wrote on Jun 16^th, 2009 at 5:11pm:

You too.  You've got a little pudding on your chin.

I'm glad I'm not the only person that thinks that. lol

Missed you too man.

I blame the full-time politicians for snookering the the public.  I also blame to public education system for doing away with critical thinking.  I also blame the public voter for allowing the media, corrupt politicians, and deep-pocketed lobbyists to tell him/her what his/her opinion is on an "issue".  Just remember when you let someone else decide what is right for you, you are just as guilty as they are for the result.

The virtue of independence refers to one's acceptance of the responsibility of using one's own judgment for the purpose of sustaining one's own life. .... Anyone who defaults on this responsibility can only live as a parasite on the thinking and effort of other people."
-- Edwin A. Locke

"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."
-- U.S. Senator Daniel Webster

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust."
-- James Madison

    I think Madison was rather presient in this quote!  We need more statesmen and less politicians!

Just some stuff to think on.  I am proud of my country, but I fear the direction it is going.

Jerry

Charlie wrote on Jun 16^th, 2009 at 6:26pm:

I heard a slightly altered version. It was the difference between a BMW and a porcupine.

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal well meaning but without understanding.” - Louis D. Brandeis