While cleaning out files I ran across a favorite quote from Thomas Jefferson. We've come a long way from his vision of government, unfortunately:
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 the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.
-Thomas Jefferson, first inaugural address, March 4, 1801
Sublime.
ReplyDeleteAmen.
ReplyDeleteJefferson was an enigma. While committed to "limited government", he oversaw a huge expenditure with the Louisiana Purchase ( a brilliant piece of negotiation as we purchased a huge chunk of real estate from France for $.04 an acre and thus avoided war with the overextended but truculent Napoleon). He was also himself an undisciplined profligate spender amassing some $10M in debt at his death. Nobody's perfect!
ReplyDeleteI don't know, once you start thinking that everything that was "right" in 1801 should be right today...you end up in strange places! Like a black man is 2/3 of a white man, or that only property owners can vote, and that women cannot vote...
ReplyDelete"As I think back over the years, I have been guided by four principles for decision making. First, the only certainty is that there is no certainty. Second, every decision, as a consequence, is a matter of weighing probabilities. Third, despite uncertainty we must decide and we must act. And lastly, we need to judge decisions not only on the results, but on how they were made.
ReplyDeleteMost people are in denial about uncertainty. They assume they're lucky, and that the unpredictable can be reliably forecast. This keeps business brisk for palm readers, psychics, and stockbrokers, but it's a terrible way to deal with uncertainty. If there are no absolutes, then all decisions become matters of judging the probability of different outcomes, and the costs and benefits of each. Then, on that basis, you can make a good decision." -Robert Rubin
Unfortunately we seem to be at this point these days:
ReplyDelete"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." -- Alexis de Tocqueville
No one will ever accuse the modern-day Congress of being "wise and frugal" with taxpayer dollars. They seem intent on enriching themselves, their cronies and buying votes to extend their time at the trough.
"I have never understood why it is 'greed' to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take someone else's money" -- Thomas Sowell
Frozen: WTF does the Northern states insisting that blacks wouldn't count as full voters have to do with Jefferson's statement on good government?? Everything in Jefferson's statement was right then, and still is. It is a timeless truth.
ReplyDeleteThe relentless commitment to destroy our Republic.
ReplyDeletehttp://freebeacon.com/issues/2-14-trillion-government-collects-record-high-taxes-first-8-months-fy-2016/
Since 1970, personal income tax revenues have increased 17 fold !!!!!!!!!
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/A074RC1Q027SBEA
Frozen, America is great but not perfect.