Quote of the Day

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

                                                                                 -Thomas Jefferson

Article Postponed till Tomorrow

Good morning, dear readers.  Our Friday article is postponed until tomorrow.  We will still have a quote of the day.  Thank you for reading.

Quote of the Day

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property are safe."

                                                                                       -Frederick Douglass






I respectfully submit that, while Douglass worked against systemic oppression that was very real, his words apply still today as an indictment of welfare programs, affirmative action, Social Security, and any other government institution or law that makes it tolerable to neglect self-improvement and initiative.  The irony is that those programs make the injustices they claim to fight into realities.

Quote of the Day

"You have enemies?  Good.  That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."

                                                                                                -Winston Churchill

A Humble View on Parties

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Today we will be examining the party system and the problems it poses for the allegiances of its members. As we have pointed out previously on this site, party backing and membership sometimes compromises the better judgment of its people, who, rather than pushing issues intended to best assist their constituents, alter those issues that they will back to what they believe the mainstream of their party will support.

Quote of the Day

" Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."


                                                                                           - Abraham Lincoln

Election Eve Special Post

Good evening, dear readers.  We have tomorrow a few very interesting races to watch, particularly the New Jersey gubernatorial race and the New York race for their 23rd congressional district.  With a lot of talking heads reporting these races and others being referendums on the Obama administration, I can't help but feel that this is just more of the myopia of which the country has long been conscious but that the established media and political machines refuse to acknowledge.

Jargon and the Comprehension of Governance

Good morning, dear readers.  Today we’re going to look at a systemic problem that has blocked politics, law, and economics from being accessible to the people who are supposed to be helped by those systems.  That problem is the overuse of jargon, specifically the use of legalese and cumbersome writing style to make those who are attempting to discover the methods by which their country is being run give up trying to understand and just assume that those methods are to their benefit.

Quote of the Day

"As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending."              
                                                                                                -Andrew Jackson

Jackson was a controversial president in many ways, but he had a good appreciation of the constitutional intent for government's function.  History also does not give him nearly enough credit for the fight he posed against the establishment of a central banking system.

I was going to post one by Millard Fillmore, just because Weave bet I wouldn't find any of his words that survived history.  I found some, but it reflects the same elitist distrust for the competence of the American people we see in Washington today, and given that Fillmore's presidency is barely a placeholder in the #13 spot I do not feel he is worthy of a quote of the day.  You win, Weave.

Quote of the Day

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.  
                                                                                            
                                                                                                   -Milton Friedman