People Our Founding Fathers Warned Us About?

[Boats]

People Our Founding Fathers Warned Us About?
RE: http://www.redstate.com/diary/david_...rned-us-about/
By: David Hinz 7-5-2009
Originally Published at The Minority Report

Our Founding Fathers were distrustful, and rightly so, of a strong centralized government, far from the control of the citizens, running roughshod over the rights of the individual.

“Taxation without Representation” was more than just revolutionary rhetoric, but a founding principle on which local control of government was based. The original Boston Tea Party was more than a protest against taxes; it was a statement of independence and liberty against tyranny.

They had experience with, and had just fought a war to gain independence from a tyrannical government that ruled with an iron fist, imposing the will of a distant monarch on an unwilling citizenry. Our founding fathers understood much about tyranny – they had a long world history of tyranny from which to observe and to learn.

But what those patriarchs most feared was the “soft bigotry of low expectations” that would become the federal government today. Thomas Jefferson warned about a government with too much power. “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.”

Benjamin Franklin contrasted the difference between individual freedom and the security of government thus; “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

They warned about the emergence of the concept of a nanny state that would do for all its citizens what they rightly should be willing to do for themselves. Again, a cautionary statement from Thomas Jefferson, “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

A cradle to grave dependency upon government to fulfill the simple wants and needs best left to the individual to either achieve or to fail was the greatest fear of those great men who had literally risked everything to obtain freedom for the people of this nation.

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

Little could our founding fathers fathom the idea that “sacred Honor” would become an outdated concept, sneered upon by leaders in Washington, DC itself, who would find it necessary to apologize for American Exceptionalism to a world desperately in need of that very quality.

Benjamin Franklin might have summed it up best when he said, "None but a virtuous people are capable of liberty, all others are in need of a master; revolutions cannot take place without danger when the people have not sufficient virtue."

The question today must become – do WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES still retain sufficient virtue to retain our freedoms – to deserve the blessings of liberty that our founding fathers shed their blood to obtain for all of their progeny?

These issues seems to have been overlooked by our system of Government. Taxation seems to be the rule of the day and has been for quite sometime. Why can't the People vote on higher taxes rather that just let Congress put them in place. It seems the rules don't apply to the People and they do want and get away with it. The Boston Tea Party was made because of taxation. How soon we forget our history and past dealings with those in office who are manipulating the funds of which we work so hard to get.

This issue has gone on long enough - we call them on these issues of a runaway expenditures of our tax dollars. Printing money only de-valuates our currency and soon we will all end up in another recession.

[Boats]

The Founding Fathers Tried to Warn Us About the Threat From a Two-Party System
Posted on July 7, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog
Polls show that a majority of Americans say that both the Republicans and Democrats are doing such a poor job representing the people that a new, third party is needed.

I’ve repeatedly warned that there is a scripted, psuedo-war between Dems and Repubs, liberals and conservatives which is in reality a false divide-and-conquer dog-and-pony show created by the powers that be to keep the American people divided and distracted. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

In fact, the Founding Fathers warned us about the threat from a two party system.

John Adams said:

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.

George Washington agreed, saying in his farewell presidential speech:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.