Muscatine

-All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
-A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
-Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
-I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
-I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
-Every generation needs a new revolution.
-Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
by Thomas Jefferson

he da man

the writings of the founding fathers is our birthright (and yes deeply flawed - there was slavery, native american genocide, and no doubt many other failures). i say look at the good and learn from the bad. now it's all been buried under piles and mounds of revisionist propaganda.

lord acton, a 19c historian of political freedom and liberty was the one who said (jefferson also could have said it) that ''power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely''.

great men and women may come to power and use it wisely, balancing ''life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'' with the need to protect and defend. i hope for that wisdom in those who seek power.

You'll not find wisdom

in those who seek power. They will inevitable be driven by greed. Wisdom is vested in those who relucantly accept the burden of leadership requested of them.

he knew what he talked about

TJ said People who made plows from their guns would be working for people that didn't.