boatbums
Since Oct 25, 2005

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My screenname is “BOATBUMS” because my husband and I lived aboard a sailboat for 8 years and a powerboat/trawler for 5 years. During the sailboat years we also worked full time. My husband was a firefighter (my hero!) and I worked in telecommunications/computer operations/training & documentation. During vacations we went to the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, the Tortugas (islands to the west of Florida) and all around Florida - the West coast, the Keys and the East coast.

Health issues brought an end to those days (sniff) and we were “Dirt Dwellers” living in a real house in North Carolina (2006-2015). We will always love the sea and hope to be able to visit the islands again one day.

We are both conservative pro-lifers and born-again Christians. I’m a registered Republican and hubby is Independent. I love Free Republic and the opportunity it gives me to stay informed and in touch with those of like mind (on most things!).

We are back in Florida now though not on a boat but closer to the sea!

"But a most pernicious error widely prevails that Scripture has only so much weight as is conceded to it by the consent of the church. As if the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended upon the decision of men!"- John Calvin

semper reformanda secundum verbum dei

"The Scriptures obtain full authority among believers only when men regard them as having sprung from heaven, as if there the living words of God were heard."- John Calvin

"Remember, truth never fears a context, only propaganda does."

"A prince, while he is a little child, is presumably as willful and as ignorant as other little children. Sometimes he may be very obedient and teachable and affectionate, and then he is happy and approved. At other times he may be unruly, self-willed, and disobedient, and then he is unhappy, and perhaps is chastised—but he is just as much a prince on the one day as on the other. It may be hoped that, as time goes on, he will learn to bring himself into willing and affectionate subjection to every right way, and then he will be more princely, but not more really a prince. He was born a prince" (C.I.Scofield, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth).

"The Law is a storm which wrecks your hopes of self-salvation, but washes you upon the Rock of Ages." -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to him."

GRACE
“The true child of God is not under the Law but under grace; he is saved by grace and disciplined by grace.”

CLARITY OF THE GOSPEL
“Man is saved by undeserved mercy through faith and nothing of man enters into his salvation; it is a free gift. Man’s efforts, regardless of how good or well intended, before or after salvation, have nothing to do with it. Salvation is by the finished work of Christ and nothing can be added to it. Every true child of God possesses eternal life and is, therefore, safe and secure for all eternity, being justified by faith, sanctified by God, and sealed by the Holy Spirit; he cannot lose his salvation. Salvation is not the result of what we do, but is by receiving what God has done for us. Man can be certain of his salvation now, and his salvation cannot be lost because eternal life is eternal.”

EVANGELISM
“It is every Christian’s privilege and duty to make clear God’s plan of salvation wherever and in whatever vocation he or she may be.” “It is a tragedy that many Christians live shallow Christian lives. Christians should live their lives to honor and bring glory to God, not to BE saved but because we ARE saved.

"Great Quotes of Thomas Jefferson"

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” (Quoting Cesare Beccaria)

The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.

The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. (Back then!)

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

In matters of style, swim with the current; In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.

The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality.

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

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.

The people cannot be all, and always, well informed.

The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty....

And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?

Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them.

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.

I do not add “within the limits of the law,” because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.

It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.

Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

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.

I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

In a government bottomed on the will of all, the...liberty of every individual citizen becomes interesting to all. vI’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

Most bad government has grown out of too much government.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

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

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

The right of self-government does not comprehend the government of others.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.

History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

It is better to tolerate that rare instance of a parent’s refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings by a forcible transportation and education of the infant against the will of his father.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

The man who reads nothing at all is better than educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Unwanted Angels

Johnny can't come out to play
And Meg won't be at her ballet.

Mike won't stop that play at third
And Sara's voice will not be heard.

Words unspoken, tears uncried,
Spirits broken, hearts untried.

Without a thought, to plant a seed,
Then pluck it out - though it may bleed.

Listen for the deafening cry!
Dare look inside...as each one dies.

Countless thoughts forever lost.
The right of choice...how high the cost!

No hearth will ever be the same,
Each loss diminishes the flame.

Angels passing in the mist,
Fifty-six million - never kissed,
Souls...on the unwanted list!

By: Linda Bernazzani Dolan

"Authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets hubris."