Quote of the Day -- On Our Nation and Concentrated Wealth

Quotes of the day -- Sunday Edition

Rather timely, given the Republican/Right Wing/Christian Right fiasco in Indiana this week.

What they didn't tell us in school about the "Founding Fathers"

Two quotes from two of the Founders:

"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy. Their turbulent and uncontroling disposition requires checks.” --Alexander Hamilton

“The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge the wants or feelings of the day-laborer. … In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability.” --James Madison

What does this have to do with anything?

It seems the Republican Party's efforts to get less and less of us voting in elections fits in with what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

It's wrong--deeply--but with this little bit of information alone, you get a strong sense of their intentions. Of course, far fewer of us had as much education then as we do now, too, so that's in our favor.

The fact is, where we are right now is that we have to get the big, ugly, corrupting influence of "campaign contributions" out of our election system and so, our government. As it stands, our legislators are bought by the corporations and wealthy, along with their legislation and so, our laws and finally, our government.

Founding Father James Madison, on war

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." ----James Madison, the essential author of Constitution.

Quote of the day--on war and peace

"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare". --James Madison

Quote of the day--on "continual warfare" II

One of the biggest problems the US and the world has right now is our desire for "continual war" so we can feed our corporations. We need to get off the "war teat".

Quote of the day--on "continual warfare"

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." — James Madison, Political Observations, 1795