"...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
...He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.... [think: "czars"]
...taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments...
What's happening in the Senate merely proves Jefferson's other point:
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Which led me to some other Jefferson quotes:
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
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.
And for those taking action to stop this, he says:
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
One man with courage is a majority.
Several friends put good quotes at the bottom of every email as a means of spreading ideas and inspiring, a tactic I like very much. It strikes me that it would be useful to spread more quotes in more ways, from every good source (Founders, Ayn Rand, etc) . Would the pithiness of tweets make them a good vehicle for this? I'm not a tweeter, I'm more of a woofer, so I pose the question. Is this practical?
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/21/us/politics/AP-US-Health-Care-Overhaul.html
House Committee Votes Against Antitrust Protection
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 21, 2009
Filed at 12:09 p.m. ET
The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A House committee has voted to strip the health insurance industry of its exemption from federal antitrust laws as senators announced plans to take the same step.
The moves Wednesday signaled a growing determination by Democrats to punish the insurance industry for its criticism of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul agenda. The House Judiciary Committee voted 20 to 9 to repeal a 1940s law that exempted the health insurance industry from federal controls over certain antitrust violations including price-fixing.
Lawmakers said they wanted to include the legislation in a larger health care overhaul bill taking shape in the House. In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced plans to repeal the antitrust exemption as part of its health care legislation.
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