Some of my favorite quotes
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jefferson and the “Living” Constitution
The biggest difference between conservatives and liberals over filling the current vacancy on the supreme Court is perhaps the question of interpretation of the Constitution. Conservatives insist that the Constitution […]
The Constitution of the Five Nations
The Constitution of the Five Nations – or – The Iroquois Book of the Great law … survives after some 500 or 600 years, and was originated by people that […]
Great Quotes
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” John Steinbeck
Minimum Wage
Business is about making a profit. To be successful, i.e. to make a profit, a business must receive more for the product or service provided than it cost to produce it. That cost includes every expense that must be incurred to produce the product or service. If the price doesn’t cover the cost AND provide a sufficient excess, the business will die.
Thomas Jefferson on intellectual property
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives …
Jefferson on Religion
Jefferson had no use for religious leaders and many times in his letters made it clear religion should be a private affair and and be kept out of politics and that the only way to know a person’s true religious beliefs was by how they lived, not by what they said.
“… the priests indeed have heretofore thought proper to ascribe to me religious, or rather anti-religious sentiments, of their own fabric, but such as soothed their resentments against … religious freedom. They wished him to be thought atheist, deist, or devil, who could advocate freedom from their religious dictations.
Jefferson on Change
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country.
Thomas Jefferson on Private Property
This may come as a shock to a lot of conservatives. Just one more example of the “Socialist” tendencies of the founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson ranked Locke, https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/property/2006/11/thomas_jefferso.html) along with Locke’s compatriot Algernon Sidney, as the most important thinkers on liberty. (http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/john-locke-natural-rights-to-life-liberty-and-property/) But he changed Locks words (“Life, Liberty, and Property”) to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. These letters to Isaac McPherson and James Madison explains why.
Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison
Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Harrison)
Our system is to live in perpetual peace with the Indians, to cultivate an affectionate attachment from them, by everything just and liberal which we can do for them within the bounds of reason, and by giving them effectual protection against wrongs from our own people. The decrease of game rendering their subsistence by hunting insufficient, we wish to draw them to agriculture, to spinning and weaving.
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl151.php
To Governor William H.
Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Hawkins
“… I consider the business of hunting as already become insufficient to furnish clothing and subsistence to the Indians. The promotion of agriculture, therefore, and household manufacture, are essential in their preservation, and I am disposed to aid and encourage it liberally. … In truth, the ultimate point of rest & happiness for them is to let our settlements and theirs meet and blend together, to intermix, and become one people. Incorporating themselves with us as citizens of the U.S. … And we have already had an application from a settlement of Indians to become citizens of the U.S.
Thomas Jefferson To Dr. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, March, 21, 1801
What an effort, my dear Sir, of bigotry in Politics & Religion have we gone through! The barbarians really flattered themselves they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism, when ignorance put everything into the hands of power & priestcraft. All advances in science were proscribed as innovations. They pretended to praise and encourage education, but it was to be the education of our ancestors.
Thomas Jefferson To Dr. Joseph Priestley, Jan. 27, 1800
“… The Gothic idea that we are to look backwards instead of forwards for the improvement of the human mind, and to recur to the annals of our ancestors for what is most perfect in government, in religion & in learning, is worthy of those bigots in religion & government, by whom it has been recommended, & whose purposes it would answer.
Thomas Jefferson To Elbridge Gerry, Jan. 26, 1799
“… I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another: for freedom of the press, & against all violations of the constitution to silence by force & not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.
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