shyster we all have been waiting for!
Posted on 03/22/2009 2:43:25 PM PDT by CHEE
In American history and government classes across this country, we still teach our children that our founding fathers demonstrated genius both in articulating the inalienable rights belonging to each person in our Declaration of Independence, and then in preserving those rights in our Constitution.
Their sole and emphatic purpose in imposing a system of checks and balances among the three branches of the federal government was to prevent the accumulation of power; and in imposing a system of federalism between the national and state governments to prevent the usurpation of authority rightfully belonging to the states or to the people. The genius, then, was not only in proclaiming the natural rights of man, but also in acknowledging the need to protect those rights from man’s natural desire for power.
Man’s desire for power does not always come from those with evil or corrupt motives. It also arises in those who believe they are possessed of beneficent, even magnanimous intentions. There are two simple reasons, however, why our founders were not fooled by the promised good intentions of their fellow man: today’s seemingly good intentions become tomorrow’s despotism; and the price of accepting the good intentions of government is paid for with a loss in liberty and a surrender in self-reliance.
(Excerpt) Read more at texasrepublicnews.com ...
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It’s a well written article, but i question the opening assertion: “In American history and government classes across this country, we still teach our children...”
From what I am hearing, what they are teaching children in the schools is not your father’s history class.
We have met the enemy, and it is us. Plato worried about a democratic political system where the people controlled the purse strings. The temptation to raid the states’ treasury is strong. Why pay for something when the state can provide it for you? To use an old saw, the people will kill the goose that lays the golden egg. This explains the mess that we are now facing. Too many people want something for nothing, and they demand that the government give it to them. Until the people of this nation stop depending upon the government to provide things that they can provide for themselves, the nation is lost.
What do you mean "We"...white man?
Mayhaps, instead of “The Road Not Taken” it is America’s case “The Liberty Not Taken”...
Unfortunately, that is a false statement. Today, students are taught that the Founding Fathers were slave-owning, misogynistic despots, who created a system designed to oppress the masses.
The results of this disinformation-based, miseducation, are seen in the youthful Obamabots, who will soon be knocking on your door, and asking you to sign a loyalty oath, Comrade. (And if you refuse - they know where you live).
I think it was Stalin who said something to the effect of, "Control education and control the masses".
Our political system is definitely our Achilles heal. The Democrats have skillfully exploited every weakness in the political system, for ill. It’s no wonder that the Chinese and Russians think that democracy is a plague.
Maybe you are. I'm not.
One amoug the many voices of protest.
What is "amoug"? Is that like a Tolkien thing?
We all know liberals don’t read and study history. Unless of course it’s their feel-good, erroneous, changed version.
Children in Utah learn more about Martin Luther King Jr. Susan B Anthony, Margaret Sanger, Rosa Parks etc than George Washington, John Adams, Patrick Henry, Abraham Lincoln the founding of this entire nation.
There is no teaching of what makes America great because to the education establishment what made America great stands as an impediment to their power.
His successors had absolute control of education, and they still lost control of the masses. It's not that simple.
Great article!
I have only one problem with it. This line:
“...its citizens realize they can manipulate government for their own selfish desires.”
Stop bashing selfishness, folks. How can you have self-reliance and self-government without being first concerned with your “self”.
Those that would paint selfishness as immoral are those who seek to own you.
To be “selfless”, without a self, is to be dead, my FRiends.
If I am responsible for my family, my kids and my wife, then I must take care of myself and look after my interests to remain robust, happy and competent. Selflessness allows for none of this.
I give to others for what it does for me.
A concept that takes an understanding of human nature and a little thought to accept.
Our very nature, our ONLY nature is a selfish one.
It is when we are ignorant of morality that we can be led astray. Don’t attack the nature attack the misinformation, or lack thereof, regarding morality.
And there is much selfish reward in doing for others and in maintaining integrity.
For you dead ass conservative republicans who continue to remain uninvolved, you’re the reason we will be forced to fight another revolution or civil war in this country. Either start holding conservatives accountable by engaging and voting for principled conservatives while kicking the living tarnation out of moderates and rino’s, or STFU and wait for the gunshot!
I think Adam put it correctly...
“Checks and Ballances, Jefferson, however you and your Party may have ridiculed them, are our only Security, for the progress of Mind, as well as the Security of Body. Every Species of these Christians would persecute Deists, as soon as either Sect would persecute another, if it had unchecked and unballanced Power. Nay, the Deists would persecute Christians, and Atheists would persecute Deists, with as unrelenting Cruetly, as any Christians would persecute them or one another. Know thyself, human Nature!—John Adams 1813”
Essentially government is instituted to limit the powers of all factions, and to bring as much harmony as is possible to the table...while not destroying the foundations of a civil and moral society.
It’s more like a sneer.
Thank you. Such articles bring a tear to the eye. I grieve for the direction our nation has gone since the 1960s, since the 1930s really. People are clueless. They will renounce all freedom for the tiniest allotment of security.
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