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.