Thomas Jefferson, often the most well respected and highly regraded of our founding fathers had many things to say that probably got him in a lot of trouble then, and would get him in even more trouble now. Now there is a sad thought for you. Most, if not all, of our countries founding fathers would be appalled at the direction our government has taken in the last 225+ years. So to start out today I have, as usual, a few quotes from dear old Tommy J.
“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?”
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
” God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.”
” I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.”
“I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”
(All from here)
While there are many more that we could get into, I think these five will be more than enough to get us all thinking, which after all is the greatest enemy of Tyranny in any place or time. So why don’t we go through them one at a time, spending a few moments with each of them to really get the feeling of where he was going with, and where we should, take these ideas.
“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?” — Really, what motivation would a government have to preserve the liberties of its people if those people are passive, apathetic, and sheep-like? If we dont’ express our discontent with our government, or we are unwilling to do anything more than talk amongst ourselves about how discontent we are, what, my friends, will preserve our liberties. Governments, by their very nature become bureaucratic, bloated, and will ultimately being to consolidate all power and wealth to themselves if left unchecked. We are those who are supposed to keep this in check, but we fail to do so, because we are too happy, too comfortable, too short sited to be bothered with complaining that one by one our freedoms are being stripped away in the name of safety, national security, public interest, and any of the dozens of other excuses given.
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” — If we choose not to be the guardians of liberty, who then will guard it? I speak not just of each of us defending our own freedom, but defending the freedoms of others. Yes this means that if we are truly advocates of free speech we have to not only permit things we find distasteful, but fight for their right to continue to say such things. To keep our own rights, we must in turn defend the rights of people we disagree with. If we oppose censorship, we must oppose it fully. Anything less is taking the first step down a slippery slope. So in addition to eternal vigilance, the second cost of freedom is that we must extend that freedom to everyone, for if we allow the Government to justify taking freedom from one group, even the most horribly offensive hate group, eventually they will justify taking freedom from us as well.
” God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.” –Twenty years is still too long, we need to be in a constant state of rebellion against the powers that be. Especially now when we live in the age of information. We now have the means to constantly voice, spread, and organize our dissent. We have the means, now our only excuse is that most lack the motive. They don’t see illegal drug checkpoints, warrant-less wiretaps, suppression of free speech, absurd and ineffective airport security, or dozens of other suppression’s of our rights as a problem. I do, and I hope that you do as well.
” I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.” — And my oh my is our government energetic these days. It has plenty of energy to legislate in areas it has no business being involved in, such as gay marriage, abortion, drug use, religion, and oh so much more. These are social issues not economic issues, not international issues, and therefore not issues that the government should have any interest in or power over.
“I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” — Thomas Jefferson said this during his own lifetime, imagine what he would have to say now. If he thought government had gotten too big 200 years ago, he would be here with us telling us that the time to rebel is not now, but yesterday, or last week, or 30 years ago. We the people have allowed the government to become much too large for OUR own good. Now the governments biggest interests are expanding its own size and power, not protecting its citizens. The Constitution was initially designed to define the government and its powers, sadly when it is invoked now, it is only to defend the people against their own government. We are seeing a progression, and a speedy one at that, from a true democracy (if we ever really had one) to an oligarchy, rule by the elite. Ask yourself, how many Representatives in congress truly represent your? Unless your white, old, rich, fat, powerful, and uneducated, probably not very many.
Since today has been a day of quotes I won’t add one as a flourish at the end, instead I will say something that you can quote later.
This is my patriotism, I point out the flaws, the weaknesses in our society, in hopes that someone will hear me and mend them. I hope that someone somewhere find these words and does something with them. These words are power, the power to change the world. If enough people read these words, we will have change.
-x
We the people.... 