All That Is Necessary

Freedom Is Not A Given

From the great Ronald Reagan:

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."

I think with each generation since the beginning of the 1900's we have ceded some of our freedom.  Government has grown consistently, sometime in huge leaps, sometime haltingly, but has ALWAYS increased in size and power. 

We have managed to hold onto remnants of our freedom, but when you look at the big picture, were are really not that free at all anymore.

I am hoping the latest election is a start at changing all that, but only time will tell.

More Wisdom From George, etc.

"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."    George Washington

Goes along with this other quote I love:

"God created man, Sam Colt made them equal."  Samuel Colt

Learn to properly use a gun and you won't have this idiotic fear of them that liberals seem to have.

Freedom Is Temporary

Freedom is not something that comes along very often in this world.  The history of mankind is made up mostly of Kings, Dictators, Tyrants, Despots, etc., where the people are treated like property or slaves.

The Founding Fathers gave us a very precious gift over 200 years ago.  We have been destroying it from the very beginning and have accelerated that destruction recently to a pace unimaginable just a few years ago.

I think about this quote often:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.  Ronald Reagan

We will not be passing freedom along to the next generation.  They will, and should, hate us for it.

Great Quotes On Freedom And Responsibility

I love quotes!  Here are some really good ones:

"We defend freedom here or it is gone. There is no place for us to run, only to make a stand. And if we fail, I think we face telling our children, and our children's children, what it was we found more precious than freedom. Because I am sure that someday - if we fail in this - there will be a generation that will ask."   Ronald Wilson Reagan

"Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks.  Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools.  And their grandchildren are once more slaves."  D.H. Lawrence, Classical American Literature, 1922

"Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it."  George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, "Maxims: Liberty and Equality," 1905

"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck."  Frederick Douglass, speech, Civil Rights Mass Meeting, Washington, D.C., 1883

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."  Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The tragic truth is that the language of "victimization" is the true victimizer - a great crippler of young minds and spirits. To teach young people that their lives are governed - not by their own actions, but by socioeconomic forces or government budgets or other mysterious and fiendish forces beyond their control - is to teach our children negativism, resignation, passivity, and despair."   Louis Sullivan

Once Again, The Evil Of Liberals

I have run the following quote before, but it is so appropriate for recent events that I am going to run it again:

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

-C.S. Lewis"

Keep those words in mind any time Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Frank & Co. open their mouths and tell us they are passing some law for the good of the people.

Some Advice From Lincoln To Obama

Obama seems to love to compare himself to President Lincoln.  Or, at least, the mainstream media does.  Well, the following is a quote from President Lincoln that Obama should take to heart.  It is so simple, yet so profound. 

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."
- Abraham Lincoln

Those words should be tattooed on the forehead of every liberal in the Administration so they have to see it every time they look in the mirror.  (Which I'm sure is pretty darn often for this crowd of politicians!)

Back To Basics - All That Is Necessary

OK.  Here is the quote that underlies all that I write on this blog:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

What is my definition of evil?  At the moment there are a lot of things that are evil in this world, but the "evil of the moment" here in the USA is the growth of collectivism under Obama and the liberals in power throughout the country.  Why is this evil?  Well, collectivism, of which socialism is the start, believes in the "collective" rather than the individual.  The individual exists to serve the state and the state feels free to enact whatever laws are necessary to FORCE the individual to do so.  Freedom, liberty, personal responsibility do not exist under collectivism.  The individual is robbed of his natural rights.  This is evil.

Collectivism has been the normal status of civilization throughout history.  The Founding Fathers knew this and fought a bloody war to bring about a new type of country, based on the individual, with drastically limited government.  This was pretty much unknown in human history.  The result was the growth of the richest, most powerful nation this world has ever seen.

But the forces of collectivism never sleep.  Early in the 1900's collectivism began its slow march in the USA.  It made huge leaps under Roosevelt and Johnson.  But it is relentless.  Under Obama, with Pelosi and Reid, it is making another huge leap.

Each time it would advance and some people would would rise up and say "no!".  However, collectivism never gave up all it accomplished, so each decade saw us becoming more and more collectivist.  Now we are at the point where there may be no stopping it.

That is why good men and women can no longer "do nothing".  We must fight the forces of collectivism now.  We must not just stall it, we must turn it back and crush it.

For those thinking, what can I do?  For starters, stop being quiet about your belief in freedom, liberty and individualism.  There are more of us out there than you think.  And don't worry if you think it is not enough.  Edmund Burke has another quote about that:

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."

Fight the evil.  Get involved.  See the effect they just a few protesters at the Tea Parties and town-hall meetings are having?  The collectivists are terrified of them.  Join the effort.

Some Quotes On Freedom And Liberty

Below are some quotes that seem very appropriate for these days.  Quotes have a way of getting down to the real core of an issue and are timeless.  Calvin Coolidge's quote down bottom could have been written about the current health-care of cap & trade bill.

“When the Government fears the people, the people live in freedom,
but when the People fear the Government, the People live in Tyranny."
— Thomas Jefferson

“The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to “create” rights.
Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government
from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.”
— Justice William J. Brennan, 1982

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by the
gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
— James Madison

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
–Benjamin Franklin
Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor - 1755

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."
– H.L. Mencken
Prejudices: First Series - 1919

"It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones."
– Calvin Coolidge
Letter to his father - 1906

Awesome quotes!  To see some more great quotes like these I always go to Freedom Quotes.  It is usually very refreshing.

Why Do So Many People Wish To Live As Slaves?

I guess to live in slavery must be more appealing to a majority of Americans now.  Given the vote for Obama and the collectivists in Congress, and the seemingly endless demand for new government programs and control, this certainly seems to be the case.  I guess having to make your own decisions and work for a living, to be a rugged individual, is too much these days.

I have resurrected the quote below for another appearance.  With the health-care debate going on right now it seems quite timely.

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

The above quote from "Alexander Tyler" is very likely fictitious. His name was actually "Lord Woodhouselee, Alexander Fraser Tyler," and he was a Scottish historian/professor who wrote several books in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

I believe we are currently in the dependence stage headed very quickly for the bondage stage.  Not all of us, of course, but the majority of us are dependent on the federal and state governments for our existence.  To me, that is slavery.

And, remember, not all banks are made of rope and steel.  Government control through taxes, rules, regulations, edicts are just as limiting.

Why These D.C. Liberals Are So Dangerous

I have used the quote below from C.S. Lewis before.  But, with ALL the new government power grabs and our decent into collectivism it seems especially appropriate today.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

-C.S. Lewis

This describes the liberals of today so well.  I cannot add to it.  Just remember this quote whenever you see Obama, Pelosi, Reid, or any Hollywood limousine liberal spouting off on what the government should do.