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Author Ramesh Ponnuru
Ron Paul-hater
It is possible that Paul will come in first in a fractured field in the Iowa caucuses: Those caucuses reward intensity of support, which he certainly has. The notion that he will be the Republican nominee is too absurd to spend a moment contemplating.
You can read this hopeless article if you weant. Better reading are the 300-plus comments that tell a different tale.
And here’s another gem. This author says Iowa is worried sick that if Paul wins then their whole political system will be ruined. What is wrong with these people?
Paul poses an existential threat to the state’s cherished kick-off status, say these Republicans, because he has little chance to win the GOP nomination and would offer the best evidence yet that the caucuses reward candidates who are unrepresentative of the broader party.
This is hilarity at its best.
I’m no mathematician, but I thought in any standard Bell Shaped Curve the apex at 50% was the average, median, and mode value of the population?
but what I’m thinking is that the 50% measure is not a null value but has content so that to the left and right of it is something less than 50%. That number should be known==especially for the IQ curve. I looked, but like long posts, I got bored and stopped before I found anything useful.
Whats is really sad though is just how stupid someone with an IQ of 100 is. My sister as an IQ of 100. She teaches high school home economics and finds nothing remarkable about not liking to cook. Ha, ha. Maybe its just me?
IQ Studies. Fascinating. What is smart and dumb? More complicated and value driven than what you might think. Amusing nuggets like on what subjects do smart and dumb people think the same? Some people think smart people have something to contribute to society, but most people disagree.
How’s dem apples?
Smart people do not necessarily have anything to contribute to society.
That is not the purpose of our existence.
If I choose to contribute something to society, I expect to be paid for it.
You may contribute to my Paypal account if you like.
Just in….Parents want their kids to have straight “A” s.
Math for evaluation (re:grades) complete BS.
Kids kill themselves over “c”s.
I treated myself to 6 pack(s) when I got a D (that’s a 1.0 Dean Wormer) in Latin.
Soon everyone trying to get into Med School, Law School, Engineering School, will have a 4.0.
3.5 students will be janitorial staff and probably making more money than the above.
The janitors of the world have no more job security than anyone else.
One big problem with doing an indispensable job is that as the competition for jobs becomes more intense, the people doing them become more fungible.
Soon everyone applying for any job will need a degree of some form in some field.
The higher the degree and the closer the field to the job, the better your chance of getting considered for a job interview by some gorgon at an HR desk.
With apologies to Chris Rock but you can take getting a GED as a passport to fame and riches and shove the piece of paper right up your ass.
Grade point averages do not indicate intelligence.
They most often indicate cheating skills.
She teaches high school home economics and finds nothing remarkable about not liking to cook.
Maybe it a case of “Those who can do and those who can’t teach.
Bobbo, that’s if it’s a standard bell curve. If you measure by IQs perhaps using a scale that goes from 0 to very high numbers will change the average.
Is there a max IQ value? Like how Bill Gates and Warren Buffett can change the average income of a small town easily, while not moving the median.
You have succeeded in increasing the average intelligence of this blog by 10% or more.
NFS==expanding on my pontification from the next page==the IQ test is a standardized test: standardized to achieve a bell shaped curve with a median, mode, and mean of 100 with a standard deviation of 15 points and equal as to men and women. Standardized means they test the test until it produces that result.
There are “specialized” IQ tests that will further standardize between blacks and whites==but tellingly, the Chinese still beat all others. Actually thats not true. I think they produce “bi-modal” results: higher in the low end and the high end with a flattened middle. Its all depends on the result desired.
Much about the human experience is that way. Real in and of itself, but the understanding of it, manufactured for the result desired. Best just to assume we are all the same and all different at the same time and figure out how much of which rule applies to what subject?
Ha, ha……………….Buddhism!
And just like magic, #… (he didn’t number the post!!!!! Must be December) took away that 10% and lowered 5 more
“Is there a max IQ value?”
Marilyn vos Savant seems to be the record holder at 228. (That takes other factors like her age at the time into account.)
220* seems to be the limits of IQ measurement but that is a limitation of the test measurement. (At 14, I corrected a geometry question on the standard Stanford–Binet test by giving a revised version of the drawings they presented. [It has something to do with image rotation about two axes. This is not intelligence as far as I am concerned. Its just perception. {That got me an invite back to the testing lab. I never did find out what the test score was for that test.(After doing a few more of these, I averaged out at 145.)}])
Scoring 0 means that you’re not only as thick as a brick, but that you are as mentally inert as lead.
The median, (or mean, [or average, {or norm,}]) is defined as 100.
Even in a room full of Einsteins, like at a symposium of theoretical physicists, the value for IQ is 100.
Even in a room full of ‘tards, like on a short bus full of window lickers, the value is 100.
100 is a moving target. It depends on your sample and sample size.
“100 is a moving target. It depends on your sample and sample size.”
Precisely.
I wonder who Marilyn vos Savant is voting for?
No doubt she would consider that information to be private.
Inquiring minds would like to know.
Somebody other than Ron Paul.
The cabal is scared stiff. They fear that Washington may become clean, and that special interests can’t get their dope anymore.
Mr. Clean is coming to town. Watch out you crony capitalists. End times are near – for you.
The mainstream media have tried everything in the book to discredit Ron Paul, ignore, ridicule and twist and turn his statements in unprecedented ways. Let this anachronism of news presentation slowly dwindle and be laid to rest.
Now this.
Yeah—as a “touch stone” I think Ron Paul is right about this. We should pull our troops out of where ever they aren’t wanted and we are bleeding ourselves into bankruptcy by keeping them there.
But as Dogma–this notion fails when the very same principle would leave Iran alone to develop their Bomb. The sustex virus was a good idea.
In the main: America cannot be the worlds policeman===BUT===in our own interests we should be the worlds “fireman.” Go into critical areas and stop the genocide while people can still argue about how bad it might have gotten BUT THEN GET THE FRICKEN OUT, and go back home. Rinse and repeat as necessary. Cheap, effective==not libertarian at all. Just pragmatic.
Most of the countries that the United States “occupy” is at the invitation of the host country.
Guyver–so what? Whether true or false doesn’t affect what I posted.
Great empires crumble when they invade countries not worth the plunder.
We really need to get back to basics and recognize the economics of world terrorism rather than domestic corruption and sleaze.
Well–crap==Sorry Guyver–reread your post. We shouldn’t stay even where we are invited and wanted if we are bleeding ourselves into bankruptcy–ie, if the plunder doesn’t pay for the adventure, we don’t go there absent a “real” National Security Interest which in large part is no where.
One of the biggest strength’s America “had” was our own internal consumer market and we wasted that asset by putting our manufacturing overseas rather than engage in trade warfare. Instead, we bound ourselves with silly free market ideas while competing markets at war with us pillaged us blind.
Silly free market corporate bastards did this to us and continue the activity today.
STORM THE BASTILLE!!! Let the revolution begin with Justice!!
In response to: Most of the countries that the United States “occupy” is at the invitation of the host country.
Just who the hell “invited” the U.S. to occupy ANYWHERE?! The facts are undeniable: The U.S. has occupied every country they have ever conquered. Just look at Germany and Japan if you need proof. Hell! Look at England!!!
And if that’s not enough, look at HISTORY where the fall of the Roman Empire was primarily due to the over extension of it’s military – by occupying other lands. Remember: if we don’t learn from history then we are condemned to repeat it.
It’s absolutely imbecilic is to post troops in any foreign nation especially if those nations are now allies. And it’s absolutely crazy to occupy a nation that doesn’t want us there – particularly when we have finished what we set out to do.
Are you maybe starting to see why other nations might think the U.S. is arrogant? And why the U.S. may actually be arrogant for trying to impose some form of government on a country that doesn’t want it? Could it be that they’re right and that we just need to leave?
So I say, fine. Let’s leave. But leave with a warning that if we ever have to come back that it might make Nazzi Germany look like a 60′s love in!
Theodore Roosevelt was right! He said, “walk softly and carry a big stick.” I say don’t be afraid to use it especially if the other guy has one too!
“The U.S. has occupied every country they have ever conquered. Just look at Germany and Japan if you need proof.”
Gee, that must be the reason why the US is trying to derail the Euro, the Germanic Colony is not behaving well.
Oh brother!!! The things one has to read here.
Since 1948, about 48% of the voting population has abstained from voting.
Get out of your armchair and vote.
I will vote for Ron Paul.
I will vote for the Constitution.
If our election ballots had ever included the option to vote for “None Of The Above,” I would have voted in the past.
The Revolution is now.
Occupy the voting booths.
If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
Were the talents and virtues which heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? Or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose and law, that they should as nearly as possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of Providence be equally enjoyed by all?
If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.
Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that “if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom,” it is a very serious consideration … that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.
Samuel Adams – (1722-1803), was known as the “Father of the American Revolution.”
Sounds good–but a false dichotomy.
Buddhism!!!!! Where wealth and liberty are both attachments. No, I don’t get it.
BUT I know I’d trade in a bit of liberty to get a bit of wealth: because thats what everyone does everyday. Silly to make those values mutually exclusive.
Pragmatism vs Dogma.
Yea…..verily!
And if voting for Ron Paul means you vote Democrat or Republican, that makes you another asswipe voter like 100,000,000 million other voters who have put us where we are over the last decades.
Even if Ron Paul gets elected and pulls troops out aggressively in the name of “national defense”, he has asserted that we have “provoked” a lot of hatred towards our country.
Assuming his assertion is true for why we’ve been attacked by terrorist organizations on behalf of countries that allegedly hate us, is he going to be prepared for the global backlash that should ultimately come?
Or will he assume that those alleged countries will let bygones be bygones once he pulls said troops out? I would say look at the problems Israel has in the Middle East to see if there’s any hope for peace in that neck of the woods.
No, it seems like no matter what happens there will be those who will want to continue to fan the flames of war for some alleged wrong that was done to them eons ago.
The difference between Israel and the U.S. is we allow those who hate us to pressure us through political correctness to advance their agenda. Israel simply calls a spade a spade and is hated for it for not leaving the Middle East entirely.
All I care about at this point, is voting the tax and spend socialist out of office.
We aren’t being attacked by any countries.
Silly Rabbit.
The “terrorists” were mostly Saudi, our friends. Wake Up.
Bingo.
A point of light in the infinite darkness.
The Saudis have financed the extremist Wahhabi sect of Islam for decades.
The Wahhabi sect of Islam is responsible for virtually every act of Islamic terror.
Imagine a leader that says we should have no wars on foreign soils and then issues letters of marque for covert mercenaries to do the dirty work he does not wish to do himself.
Imagine a leader that says we should have no foreign alliances and entanglements wish to implement a hard currency system that allows private banks from anywhere to issue currency to his nation.
Imagine a leader that is against earmarks to gain political support that adds to the deficit get earmarks for shrimp fishermen, a closed movie theater to be restored and a hospital in his own county of his own state.
Imagine a leader that will say or tell you anything you wish to hear to gain your support, when every other leader does the exact same thing. Yet, nothing gets better.
I don’t need to use my imagination. It is real and happening right now. And we should set aside fantasy and imagination and instead WORK and PLAN and RATIONALISE a real solution. Not be swayed by hope, faith and promises; which are not tangible.
Cursor_
Well–I agree the Lame Stream Media looks silly and biased when ignoring Ron Paul given his popularity. I don’t know what the supposed rules are for inclusion in debates but it might be that Buddy Roemer is getting a raw deal. None of that applies to any opinion piece though. Paul is a “minority view” candidate. By consequence, most reportage will be critical of him.
Similarly, I always find it amusing that when are article or question is absolute fair but addresses anything disadvantageous to a candidate it is called negative as if informing the voters was a bad thing? Like Newt having lost his Speakership? Or Paul not supporting Civil Rights legislation? Is that being negative in a negative sense or merely reporting important disadvantageous information that the public should know?
Allegedly the League of Women Voters decided to no longer host presidential debates out of disgust because the Democrats and Republicans set up so many rules to exclude other parties in on the debates.
Apparently the two dominant parties don’t like the extra competition and will have rules set up for exclusion. I’ve heard that 3rd party candidates trying to show up for these debates typically get arrested for trespassing since those debates are considered private affairs.
In Pennsylvania, if you are not registered R or D, you can’t vote in a primary, you are disenfranchised. I’m quite sure this is unconstitutional. Guess who made up this law?
What about Independent voters. Are they disenfranchised as well?
I don’t know who would make up that law, but it would appear to be unconstitutional.
Ron Paul is not so “popular.” Perhaps this would explain his appeal in Iowa.
If Ron Paul were to become “popular,” it follows that his views would not be considered a “minority view.”
Bell curve for men and women are different, as women are more likely to be average.
I know you are joking. Not funny, but still trying? The thing with IQ tests anyway is that they are “jiggered” to work out. The wimmens score higher on verbal testing questions while the hunks score higher on spatial orientation questions and so you pick enough of each so that the average, mode, and median all work out the same. Blacks are totally correct to say IQ tests are culturally biased. Those in english favor the english while those in french favor the french. Life is like that. But even on a balanced test==introduce distractions like street noises, hallway noises, people walking into the test area and what not and men’s scores will markedly fall while women’s scores stay much more stable–all about being multi tasked in raising the kiddies rather than single purpose as in hunting vilderbeasts. I know thats true because it was tested for.
Test construction and theory is fascinating. does kinda make you suspicious of any “result” thereafter. Not a good class for undergrads to take. Should be restricted to advanced degrees.
Ron Paul could be the GOP’s Jimmy Carter. Just right for the times, but ultimately cut from the wrong political cloth to operate effectively in Washington. I am sure that he would use the bully pulpit masterfully. He would really be the outsider candidate.
… also, on voting procedures:
Caucuses are stupid. If we were a small town, prior to TV and phones, with NOTHING else to do caucuses would be ideal. Asking people to be aware of politics and the views of candidates is one thing. Getting them to show up at a specific time and waste an afternoon\evening is something else entirely.
A simple ballot. Paper backup of voting. A few weeks of early voting. Rare absentee voting.
Maybe the GOP can get rid of Paul with a strategically released swamp rabbit.
A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.
Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are only 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 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. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.
I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people’. To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition.
The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.
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 rights of the individual.
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.
I tolerate with utmost latitude the right of others to differ with me in opinion without imputing to them criminality. I know too well all the weaknesses and uncertainty of human reason to wonder at its different results.
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.
Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.
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 coordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet… We shall see if they are bold enough to take the daring stride their five lawyers have lately taken. If they do, then… I will say, that ‘against this every man should raise his voice,’ and more, should uplift his arm.
Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.
Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions.
Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
Thomas Jefferson – (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
******** snipped from above **********
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
Thomas Jefferson – (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
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And explanation for the R and D voters on this blog: This fear which Jefferson had was shared by many of his peers. There were no parties back then, no official factions, and every thinking man shared Jefferson’s viewpoint on how bad it would become if parties ever coalesced into existence.
Fast forward to 2011. No R or D voter alive now, were he alive back then, would even deserve to wipe Jefferson’s ass.
Agreed.
It must never be forgotten…that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power.
To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.
The constitution ought to secure a genuine militia and guard against a select militia. …. all regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenseless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests and attachments to the community ought to be avoided.
Why then sir, why do we longer delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic. Let her arise not to devastate and to conquer but to reestablish the reign of peace and law. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever-increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repose. If we are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of the American legislators of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of all of those whose memory has been and ever will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens.
Richard Henry Lee – (1732-1794) Founding Father
Why doesn’t this guy go back to answering the phones at Dell?
Teapublicans terrified that Paul will just mess up the good old boy network with the military-industrial complex, lawyers, drug companies, oil and wall street.
Go Ron Paul
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.
In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.
Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
Make yourselves sheep and the wolves will eat you.
There was never a good war, or a bad peace.
Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.
It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.
Benjamin Franklin – (1706-1790) US Founding Father
Franklin would be extremely disappointed if he came back. Good thing he’s dead, buried and there is no way he’s coming back.
His body is dead, but his thoughts are preserved for posterity.
If he were alive today, the culture shock would land him in a psychiatric institution.
Did you hear that from a Murdoch editorial on Bloomberg?
No silly. Murdoch has his own media outlet. Why are you so stupid?
Hahahaha. At least you recognize you felt stupid.
Let us know what you hear on Bloomberg’s channel: Fox News.
Sheepleeeeeeeee
Obama, whoever the Repubes finally hold their noses and pick to run against him, who gives a fuck?
In the end, it’ll still be a party dominated by $$$.
If you have to run, you have to have something to run with, and that means you beg, borrow, steal and sell your integrity to the people with the $$$, the 12,400 billionaires who already own damn-near everything and are getting more, second by second.
We’ve become ruled by a government
OF the thousandaires (the 99%)
BY the millionaires (the 1%)
FOR the billionaires (the 12,400 individuals identified by the IRS as the people who count (though they don’t really count as they hire some thousandaires to run machines to do that.)
There’s no other choice. All the other Republicans are globalist pieces of shit and voting for the globalist Obama again after all the lies is insane.
Just like the idiots who voted for Dumbya TWICE.
“Just like the idiots who voted for Dumbya TWICE.”
I wept for my country when Dumbya was reelected.
I like Ron Paul. I can vote for him.
If I get the chance I will vote for who ever is running against Obama. I would have to rank him as one of our 4 worst Presidents. He makes Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson look like great leaders.
ron paul american big business’ best candidate for removing all the inconvenience of regulations to keep the american consumer protected…
shivers……
The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning…. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.
Let us disappoint the Men who are raising themselves upon the ruin of this Country.
Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.
All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the “latent spark”… If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?
Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil.
The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.
It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.
You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments: rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.
When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations … This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.
John Adams – (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President
My concern is that if Ron Paul becomes US President, it will quickly become evident that he’s NOT in charge. And that few of any really have been, going back a hundred years or more. Congress will either ignore him completely (the military too). Or they’ll take him out, and install the puppet VP to fill the role, much more obedient and subserviently. Ron Paul would be made the scapegoat for everything the US government does wrong. Including the Congress. He’ll just end up being the white Obama, in the political insiders’ eyes. Yeah, you can vote for him, and maybe even get Paul elected. But nobody in the government really has to do anything he says. Not without a lot of red tape, basically stalling him out for four years. Kind of like what they’re doing with Obama, now.
I agree with you.
Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?
To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude, that the fiery and destructive passions of war, reign in the human breast, with much more powerful sway, than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and, that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.
No legislative act contrary to the Constitution can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy (agent) is greater than his principal; that the servant is above the master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people; that men, acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid. It is not to be supposed that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their will to that of their constituents. A Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by judges as fundamental law. If there should happen to be a irreconcilable variance between the two, the Constitution is to be preferred to the statute.
In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws.
But if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights
If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.
Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinions, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.
Alexander Hamilton – (1757-1804) Founding Father
I have always had this suspicion as well. And that speaks to the “globalist theory and agenda”. All we can do is vote for a man who is so obviously not on board, and hope that they don’t take him out ala JFK, RFK, and MLK.
Lone gunman my ass.
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force, and like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
Occupants of public offices love power and are prone to abuse it.
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.
No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable.
My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: Being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so.
But if we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of Liberty abused to licentiousness.
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.
It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn.
The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.
The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period.
No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass.
May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.
George Washington – (1732-1799) Founding Father, 1st US President, ‘Father of the Country’
Just come out and say it plain: The Council of Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Organization, International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank have already placed microchips in the temporal lobe with a frequency receiver tuned to the National Emergency System wavelengths.
Every morning from 2:13 to 4:17 AM everyone in America is turned into an automaton doing the unknown and secrete directives of this cabal.
There is no hope, no escape. All your wealth are belong to us–err, I mean THEM! They don’t care about anything else.
The best thing is, all these groups are real==and secret. Practically proof positive.
If these groups were secret, then you would not know about them.
is Eidard a pedophile? every story he posts seems to either feature exploited small children in compromising situations or are specifically about pedophillia.
He’s like one of those stridently anti-gay preachers who turn out to be homosexual.
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated.
An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.
I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
Though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.
A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution is power without a right. All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must be either delegated, or assumed. There are not other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either.
Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
The most formidable weapons against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.
The danger to which the success of revolutions is most exposed, is that of attempting them before the principles on which they proceed, and the advantages to result from them, are sufficiently seen and understood.
Thomas Paine – (1737-1809) English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States
What’s up with all the copy-paste now. Is this Alfred E. Newman’s new nickname?
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Mark Twain
Pretend that you’re not idiot and try to have something of your own to say.
Me.
No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.
It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.
Patrick Henry – (1736-1799) US Founding Father
JCD is just mad at Ramesh Ponnuru because he was the first guy to really push McCain as a viable nominee. JCD lost lots of bets as a result.
If you look at the head to head polls against Obama, Ron Paul has the second best numbers (-7/-8%). Romney has the best (+2/-8%).
Paul is certainly ahead of that lying bag of lard and part time weather balloon Gingrich.