Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Quotes From Radicals




Quotes from radicals about people, their guns and their government.
  1. "Government is not reason, nor eloquence. It is force. And like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master."
  2. "Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth."
  3. "I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."
  4. “"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men."
  5. "A government of laws, and not of men."
  6. "The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
  7. “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good.”
  8. "It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government."
  9. "Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them."
  10. "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."
  11. "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
  12. "It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it."
  13. "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
  14. "This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins."
  15. "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

Inspired by Bill Whittle's latest installment of 'Afterburner,' I have collected these quotes to share how the founders felt about the right to bear arms and government intrusion within our lives. Today's Tea Party Activists share these same ideals and yet are ridiculed as being out of touch with the traditional American ideal of tolerance and a reserved nature. In fact, tolerance for any government intrusion is not in accordance with any American ideal, nor is it how our founding fathers professed to believe. Our founding fathers warned against a strong central government and it's inevitable path toward tyranny. We are responsible to ourselves, our deity and to our fellow man. We are not responsible to a government. The government was initiated to be responsible to the citizens of this nation. The constitution was written to be an inhibitor of government power, not an advocacy for it. Unless people begin to understand the founding of this nation and the restrictions that were set upon the government, then we are doomed to a fate of lost liberties and the eventual loss of our republic.



The catalyst for the American Revolution was the passage of the Intolerable Acts. These acts consisted of five separate acts which reduced freedom and increased government influence in people's daily lives. Here they are listed:


  • The Boston Port Act: a response to the actions of the Boston Tea Party which was a rebellion against the crown's mandate that a certain good must be purchased by an imposed vendor. The act served to close the port of Boston, handicapping the cities ability to conduct business.
  • The Massachusetts Act: dictated local government and ruling class positions were to be decided by the King. It also restricted the ability of people to gather together in meetings.
  • The Administration of Justice Act: gave governors the ability to relocate trials for accused officials to another colony or even to England itself if the governor felt that the official could not receive a fair trial. It served to allow government officials to get away with crimes as often the victims in the case could not take time away from work to participate in the trial.
  • The Quartering Act: gave governors and officials increased power to mandate the location for housing soldiers. The mandate included homes of colonialists.
  • The Quebec Act: unrelated to the Boston Tea Party, this act expanded the borders of the Canadian colony, removed mentions of the protestant faith from oaths of allegiance and expanded the practice of Roman Catholicism. It served to remove land which had belonged to the colonies and was governed by a representative legislature to a non-representative government.
Imposed restrictions upon the peoples ability to conduct free enterprise; the appointment of non-elected governing officials; the governing class walking away from crimes unpunished; the coerced use of private property for public/government use; increased non-representative government. Do any of these sound familiar? The founders and many colonialists found this to be tyranny, do we?

The authors of the above 'radical' quotes are listed in order below.
  1. George Washington
  2. George Washington
  3. Thomas Jefferson
  4. Samuel Adams
  5. John Adams
  6. Thomas Jefferson
  7. George Washington
  8. Alexander Hamilton
  9. Thomas Paine
  10. George Washington
  11. Benjamin Franklin
  12. George Washington
  13. Thomas Jefferson
  14. Benjamin Franklin
  15. Thomas Paine
I'll leave you with one final and quite popular quote from the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson:
What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Please take the time to comment! Click the Informed Opinion Link adjacent to the Post Title.

6 People Have Had Their Say:

Amoronymous said...

Regarding your 6 bullets, could you provide the contemporary events that you feel are representative of them? You asked, "Do any of these sound familiar?" Frankly, relative to the 6 items you list, no. Please educate me.

Amoronymous said...

Regarding your final quote from T.J.:

Mr. Jefferson was referring to the armed rebellion against Great Britain, which from Britain's perspective was an act of treason. You appear to be advocating taking up arms against our country and causing loss of life in the process. That, to this patriot, is an act of treason.

Jefferson and his contemporaries were living without representation under the rule of a government an ocean away. There is nothing I see to indicate he would feel the same need for rebellion today. But if he did (and I'm sure you can come up with a list of outrages to demonstrate he would), he would have had that feeling years ago, not just as a result of the last election.

Perhaps your response to my previous post will explain which events of the last 16 months have put us into such an intolerable state of oppression.

classicaliberal on April 16, 2010 at 12:43 PM said...

JB can speak for himself, but he advocated nothing of the sort. His post is clearly a reminder that a government which does not serve the people is destined to be overthrown by the people. There are countless people now within this country that feel they are not being represented by their government.

The government would do well to heed these warnings.

Surely you're not so thick as to think that the government has not increased restrictions upon the peoples ability to conduct free enterprise? You can't be so stupid as to not realize that there are an increasing number of appointed non-elected officials now writing policy which affects our lives. I know that you're not so foolish as to be unable to recall that several elected officials have walked away from crimes just within the last few years. And surely you can't be so nearsighted as not to remember recent cases exploiting eminent domain.

Aponymous said...

"No, we're not advocating violence. But government better heed the warning that we're not advocating!" WTF? You're either saying something or you're saying nothing.

Why the non-answer? Can you please point to examples to support the posting? Maybe I am thick, stupid, foolish and nearsighted. But you seem unable to do more than make vague claims.

And whoever JB is, he don't Say much.

classicaliberal on April 19, 2010 at 12:18 AM said...

When a child misbehaves, and you remind the child what the punishment for the misbehavior is, that is not 'threatening violence'. It's reminding the child what the consequences are. Likewise posting a notice upon your property that the proprietor or owner is armed is not a threat of violence, but a warning.

I don't know why you think this was a non-answer...

You appear to be advocating taking up arms against our country and causing loss of life in the process.

JB can speak for himself, but he advocated nothing of the sort.

Also, you'll notice at the end of each post next to the date of publish, the author's name or pseudonym is listed. JB would refer to JB Say, the guy who authored the post.

Eponymous said...

"Also, you'll notice at the end of each post next to the date of publish, the author's name or pseudonym is listed. JB would refer to JB Say, the guy who authored the post."

I was a little slow on the uptake, but figured that one out.

"I don't know why you think this was a non-answer...
JB can speak for himself"


That's not the non-answer. Your unwillingness to cite equivalencies to the Boston Port Act, etc., is what I was referring to. Your "Surely you're not so thick..." response did not provide any examples, only implied insults.

 

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