Sayings
Issue #76 Posted March, 2012

"Fathom the hypocrisy of a Government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured ...but not everyone must prove they are a citizen"

"Deficits, as I've often said, aren't caused by too little taxing, they're caused by too much spending. Presidents can't appropriate a dollar of tax payers money, only Congressmen can; and Congress is susceptible to all sorts of influences that have nothing to do with good government." -- Ronald Reagan

"The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects -- his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity." -- American economist Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993)

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." -- British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful, and murder respectable and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind." -- George Orwell

"To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything." -- Nobel laureate economist Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992)

"The Declaration of Independence [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man." -- Thomas Jefferson

"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The fact is, we'll never build a lasting economic recovery by going deeper into debt at a faster rate than we ever have before. ... Inflation is the cause of recession and unemployment. And we're not going to have real prosperity or recovery until we stop fighting the symptoms and start fighting the disease. There's only one cause for inflation -- government spending more than government takes in. The cure is a balanced budget. Ah, but they tell us, 80 percent of the budget is uncontrollable. It's fixed by laws passed by Congress. Well, laws passed by Congress can be repealed by Congress. And, if Congress is unwilling to do this, then isn't it time we elect a Congress that will?" -- Ronald Reagan

Liberals: America's Termites

"Material poverty can be measured relatively or absolutely. An absolute measure would consist of some minimum quantity of goods and services deemed adequate for a baseline level of survival. Achieving that level means that poverty has been eliminated. However, if poverty is defined as, say, the lowest one-fifth of the income distribution, it is impossible to eliminate poverty. Everyone's income could double, triple and quadruple, but there will always be the lowest one-fifth. Yesterday's material poverty is all but gone. In all too many cases, it has been replaced by a more debilitating kind of poverty -- behavioral poverty or poverty of the spirit. This kind of poverty refers to conduct and values that prevent the development of healthy families, work ethic and self-sufficiency. The absence of these values virtually guarantees pathological lifestyles that include: drug and alcohol addiction, crime, violence, incarceration, illegitimacy, single-parent households, dependency and erosion of work ethic. Poverty of the spirit is a direct result of the perverse incentives created by some of our efforts to address material poverty." -- George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams

"The federal government wants more and more to tell us, by law and by bureaucratic regulation, what's good for us -- what to eat, what to spend our own money on, to whether and where to smoke a cigarette or eat a burger. When a senator asked Elena Kagan, the president's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, whether she believed Congress had the power 'to tell people what to eat every day,' she was stumped for an answer. The personal has become the political. The Founding Fathers are spinning." -- columnist Suzanne Fields

"In the past few days, we've ... heard from former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams, who has confirmed -- from the belly of the beast -- our worst suspicions about Obama and Eric Holder's Justice Department's dismissing a slam-dunk case for voter intimidation against New Black Panther Party members for racial reasons. This is an egregious trampling on the rule of law, an outrage that would subject any Republican president to charges of high crimes and misdemeanors, a scandal of the first order for which this administration isn't even bothering to develop 'plausible deniability.'" -- columnist David Limbaugh

"As I've noted many times over the years when debating both Democrats and Republicans who fall back on empty phrases to justify putting the amnesty cart before the enforcement horse, we are not a 'nation of immigrants.' This is both a factual error and a warm-and-fuzzy non sequitur. Eighty-five percent of the residents currently in the United States were born here. Yes, we are almost all descendants of immigrants. But we are not a 'nation of immigrants.' (And the politically correct president certainly wouldn't argue that Native American Indians, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians and descendants of black slaves 'immigrated' here in any common sense of the word, would he?)" -- columnist Michelle Malkin

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." -- John M.

"Justice is the end of government." -- James Madison

"Superior people talk about ideas, average people talk about events, and inferior people talk about other people?" -- Jeff Cooper

"Violence, naked force has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms." ­- Robert Heinlein

"The unarmed man is not just defenseless, he is also contemptible" -- Machiavelli

"I don't care what you put up your nose, in your arm, or in your belly - as long as it neither picks my pocket or breaks my arm." -- Unk

"Non-leftists who cherish the American value of liberty over the left-wing value of socioeconomic equality, as well as those who adhere to Judeo-Christian values, do not regard the existence of economic classes as inherently morally problematic. If the poor are treated equally before the law, are given the chance and the liberty to raise their socioeconomic status and have their basic material needs met, the gap between rich and poor is not a major moral problem. Of course, if the rich got rich through deceitful or violent means, they must be prosecuted. But America is a place where the way in which 'poor' is defined renders most poor Americans materially equivalent to much of Europe's middle class. America is also a place where the rich by and large legally acquired their wealth through hard work and entrepreneurial enterprise. So here, the existence of rich and poor is not a problem that demands governmental action." -- radio talk-show host Dennis Prager

"I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." -George Washington

"If the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, isn't the Patriot Act appeasement?" -- Unk

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion -- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing -- when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors -- when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you -- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice -- you may know that your society is doomed." -- author and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

"If there's any message that I wish to convey today, it is: be of good cheer. We're coming back and coming back strong. Our confidence flows not from our skill at maneuvering through political mazes, not from our ability to make the right deal at the right time, nor from any idea of playing one interest group off against the other. Unlike our opponents, who find their glee in momentary political leverage, we [nourish] our strength of purpose from a commitment to ideals that we deeply believe are not only right but that work. ... We are, and proudly so, but we are also the keepers of the flame of liberty." -- Ronald Reagan

"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." -- Thomas Paine

"The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy. ... Roosevelt's policies were very destructive. Roosevelt's policies made the depression longer and worse than it otherwise would have been." -- economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006)

"I don't know who started the idea that a President must be a Politician instead of a Business man. A Politician can't run any other kind of business. So there is no reason why he can run the U.S. That's the biggest single business in the World." -- American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"The people of the U.S. owe their Independence & their liberty, to the wisdom of descrying in the minute tax of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil comprised in the precedent. Let them exert the same wisdom, in watching against every evil lurking under plausible disguises, and growing up from small beginnings." -- James Madison

"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt." -- Samuel Adams

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy." -- Thomas Jefferson

"An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture." -- Ronald Reagan

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." -- Thomas Jefferson

"We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man." -- James Madison

"Excessive taxation ... will carry reason and reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Newspapers ... serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Like the Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, conservatives believe that our rights as human beings come from God. They do not come the state or the ruling class. If the state can grant rights to you -- civil rights, parental rights, or any others, they can take them away. Ask residents of the former Soviet Union what is was like to have no rights and that they only existed at the whim of the ruling party. When the government gets in the business of granting rights or dispensing charitable deeds, it does it on the premise that it knows what is best. Thus, the bureaucracy, the government institution, not the individual, will determine who is worthy of receiving those funds. And when an institution becomes self-perpetuating the people become secondary. Thus, the ultimate goal is to shrink the independence of men and women, but enlarge their dependence on government. ... The fundamental principle of conservatism is freedom." -- columnists Diana Banister and Craig Shirley

"The American people, the most generous on earth, who created the highest standard of living, are not going to accept the notion that we can only make a better world for others by moving backwards ourselves. Those who believe we can have no business leading the nation. I will not stand by and watch this great country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts from one crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose. We have come together here because the American people deserve better from those to whom they entrust our nation's highest offices, and we stand united in our resolve to do something about it." -- Ronald Reagan

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." -- Thomas Jefferso

"Has anyone stopped to consider that we might come closer to balancing the budget if all of us simply tried to live up to the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule?" -- Ronald Reagan

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- cultural anthropologist and writer Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

"'Trust me' government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man; that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties. The trust is where it belongs -- in the people. The responsibility to live up to that trust is where it belongs, in their elected leaders. That kind of relationship, between the people and their elected leaders, is a special kind of compact." -- Ronald Reagan

"[W]hen all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another." -- Thomas Jefferson

"If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?" -- Benjamin Franklin

"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams

"[A] wise and frugal government ... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- British writer C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

"The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would ... assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it." -- Adam Smith

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money--only for wanting to keep your own money." -- columnist Joe Sobran (1946-2010)

"I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit." -- President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908)

"Things in our country run in spite of the government, not by the aid of it." -- American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker." -- John Adams

"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson

"We hear much of special interest groups. Our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we are sick -- professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, 'We the people,' this breed called Americans. Well, this administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal opportunity for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination. Putting America back to work means putting all Americans back to work. ... All must share in the productive work of this 'new beginning' and all must share in the bounty of a revived economy. With the idealism and fair play which are the core of our system and our strength, we can have a strong and prosperous America at peace with itself and the world." -- Ronald Reagan

"[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them." -- Candidus

"When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground." -- Thomas Jefferson

"We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed." -- Ronald Reagan

Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented immigrant" is like calling a drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist." -- Unknown.

"Diplomacy without force is like music without instruments." -- Frederick the Great

"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves." -- Thomas Jefferson

2012-2