If you vote...

‎"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."
~ John Quincy Adams

A Dangerous Republic of Fools

This quotation has been making its rounds and is attributed to someone in the Czech Republic. Regardless of who it belongs to, I believe it is spot on and can be applied to our electoral decisions overall. 

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitudeof fools such as those who made him their president." 

Tax Day Quotations

In honor of our beloved tax day, here are some quotations on the subject...

Congress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay.--Milton Friedman

The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away.--John S. Coleman

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.--Herman Wouk

America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation.--Dr. Laurence J. Peter

There is no such thing as a good tax.--Winston Churchill

To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury.--Benjamin Tucker

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.--Calvin Coolidge

 Taxes may be levied for public necessity, but beyond this “to impose them upon the common folk without cause is tyrannical extortion.”--John Calvin

"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson

"To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, 'to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.'For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union." --Thomas Jefferson

"What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue." --Thomas Paine

"If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute."--Thomas Paine

“Taxation: how the sheep are shorn.”--Edward Abbey

   “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”--James Madison

Quotation of the Day

I thought this quotation was especially pertinent considering the events leading to the passage of Obamacare. 

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." – P.J. O'Rourke

Quotation of the Day

“The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”--Thomas Jefferson

Jeffersonian Wisdom

I would like to draw attention to a portion of my blog that may often go unnoticed. I am referring to the quotation on the upper right-hand side by the great Thomas Jefferson laying out the proper position on government and constitutional authority. I keep it there because I love it and I love the man who said it.

In it we see a strong reliance on the individual, a strong reliance on the rights of states, and a strong reliance on the rule of law. I encourage you to read it, savor it, and put its ideas to practice.

I have included the quotation below for easy readability.

"The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes [and] delegated to that government certain definite powers and whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. To this compact each state acceded as a state, and is an integral party, its co-states forming, as to itself, the other party. The government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution the measure of its powers." --Thomas Jefferson

Quotation of the Day

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." – Thomas Jefferson