Sayings
Issue #83 Posted May, 2013

"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty... Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins." -- Elbridge Gerry, 1789

"The gun has been called the great equalizer, meaning that a small person with a gun is equal to a large person, but it is a great equalizer in another way, too. It insures that the people are the equal of their government whenever that government forgets that it is servant and not master of the governed." -- Ronald Reagan

"We are told not to judge all Muslims based on the actions of a few. I suggest we give millions of responsible American gun owners that same courtesy." -- Terry D.

"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot..." -- Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

"I only consider it hoarding if you have more stuff than I do. If I have more than you do, then it's planning ahead." -- Annon

"Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please—this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more! So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you. (This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)" -- Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

"The difference between the Supreme Court and the Ku Klux Klan is that the members of the Supreme Court dress in black robes and scare white people." -- Annon

"A pen in the hand of this president [Obama] is far more dangerous than a gun in the hands of 200 million law-abiding citizens." -- editorial that appeared in the February 21 Peoria (IL) Journal Star

"Although we give lip-service to the notion of freedom, we know the government is no longer the servant of the people but, at last, has become the people's master. We have stood by like timid sheep while the wolf killed - first the weak, then the strays, then those on the outer edges of the flock, until at last the entire flock belonged to the wolf." -- Gerry Spence

"There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.... In fact it is only reestablishing under another name and a more specious form, force as the measure of right." -- James Madison, letter to James Monroe, 1786

"The instrument by which it [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!" -- Alexander Hamilton, Tully, No. 3, 1794

Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of the sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who shall venture the repetition? If our example shall prove to be one, not of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this great Western Sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world? -- Daniel Webster

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are." -- William Tecumseh Sherman

"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." -- Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

"You do not examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey when properly administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause when improperly administered." -- Lyndon B Johnson (of all people!!)

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." -- George Washington

"The great body of our citizens shoot less as time goes on. We should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services by every means in our power. thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the world... The first step - in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come - is to teach men to shoot!" -- President Theodore Roosevelt (Last message to Congress).

"To see the good in some folks, you have to put holes in them so you can see inside." -- Ray L.

"Guns are a lot like parachutes. If you need one and don't have one, you'll probably never need one again." -- Unk

"All governments will eventually seek to limit the people’s rights." -- Tim B.

"All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity." -- George Washington, letter to Catherine MacAuly Graham, 1790

"Iron will melt, but it will writhe inside of itself! All these years, all I've known is darkness. But I have never seen a brighter light than when my eyes just opened. And I know that light burns in all of you! Those embers must turn to flame. Iron into sword! I will become your weapon! Forged with a fierce fire that I know is in your hearts! For I have seen what she sees, I know what she knows. I can kill her. And I'd rather die today than live another day of this death! And who will ride with me? Who will be my brother?" -- Snow White’s speech to the Duke and the crowd in the movie Snow White and the Huntsman

"One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them." -- Thomas Jefferson

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!" -- Samuel Adams, 1776

"The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." -- From The Weapon Shops of Ishar, by A. Van Vogt

"The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon ... has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right." -- James Madison

"Ridiculous regulations invite transparent evasion." -- Paul Kirchner

"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…" ­- Winston Churchhill

"If you don't tie our hands, we will keep stealing." -- Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA), March 16, 2010

"It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia Query 19, 1781

"You can ignore reality. What you cannot ignore are the consequences of ignoring reality." -- Ayn Rand

"Nobody goes into government to leave other people alone." -- Unk

"When fools and folly rule the world, the end of Man may come as a rude shock, but it can hardly come as a surprise!" -- Abdul Rahman Pazmak

"Most people, sometime in their lives, stumble across truth. Most jump up, brush themselves off, and hurry on about their business as if nothing had happened." -- Sir Winston Churchill

"[A] rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." -- Robert A. Heinlein

"That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power." -- Recommended Bill of Rights from the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1778

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -- Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

"Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves." -- Joseph Warren, Boston Massacre Oration, 1775

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 46, 1788

"The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Ritchie, 1820

"In a state of nature, the object of existence is to obtain one's dinner without providing someone else with his." -- Robert Ardrey, "African Genesis"

"If the president alone was vested with the power of appointing all officers, and was left to select a council for himself, he would be liable to be deceived by flatterers and pretenders to patriotism." -- Roger Sherman, 1789

"A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves ... and include... all men capable of bearing arms. ... The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle." -- Richard Lee, Federal Farmer LIII

"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, - who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia." -- George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

"The sad fact is that most people, even armed people, go thru life in full rectal defilade." -- Stewart A.

"Let us consider, brethren, we are struggling for our best birthrights and inheritance, which being infringed, renders all our blessings precarious in their enjoyments, and, consequently triffling in their value. Let us disappoint the Men who are raising themselves on the ruin of this Country. Let us convince every invader of our freedom, that we will be as free as the constitution our fathers recognized, will justify." -- Samuel Adams, A State of the Rights of the Colonists, 1772

"President Obama gave a speech about gun violence in Chicagoland, attempting to persuade the nation to give up their Second Amendment rights just so black people in Chicago will stop gunning one another down." -- Paul Kersey

"O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all?" -- Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be to-morrow." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 62, 1788

"Banning high capacity magazines in order to prevent school shootings is like banning large capacity soft drink cups to prevent obesity." -- Unk

"How we spend our days, is how we spend our lives." -- Anonymous

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer." -- Benjamin Franklin, "Management of the Poor" (1766)

"Is it reasonable to expect wisdom from the ignorant? Fidelity from the profligate? Assiduity and application to public business from men of a dissipated life? Is it reasonable to commit the management of public revenue to one who has wasted his own patrimony? Those, therefore, who pay no regard to religion and sobriety in the persons whom they send to the legislature of any State are guilty of the greatest absurdity and will soon pay dear for their folly." -- John Witherspoon, A Sermon Delivered at Public Thanksgiving after Peace

"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Strangers are welcome because there is room enough for them all, and therefore the old inhabitants are not jealous of them; the laws protect them sufficiently so that they have no need of the patronage of great men; and every one will enjoy securely the profits of his industry. But if he does not bring a fortune with him, he must work and be industrious to live." -- Benjamin Franklin, Those Who Would Remove to America, 1784

"Another not unimportant consideration is, that the powers of the general government will be, and indeed must be, principally employed upon external objects, such as war, peace, negotiations with foreign powers, and foreign commerce. In its internal operations it can touch but few objects, except to introduce regulations beneficial to the commerce, intercourse, and other relations, between the states, and to lay taxes for the common good. The powers of the states, on the other hand, extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, and liberties, and property of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state." -- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

"But that they mean no harm doesn't matter because they support evil." -- Mark H.

"I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property and lives of their people." -- Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1823. ME: 15:436

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." -- Ernest Benn

"The United States will never be a Banana Republic! We're no longer a republic and we don't grow bananas." -- Paul Kirchner

"The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it." -- James Madison

"[T]he mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 42, 1788

"The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum." -- English cleric and writer" Charles Colton (1780-1832)

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." -- Winston Churchill

2013-3