Free In Idaho!

Worldview.  Have you spent much time working on yours?  Do you have a “belief system”, or just a random collection of “that sounds good, I believe that”?  What you believe informs and directs all of your decisions, all of your life.  Take a look at JWR, as he answers critics.  Well done Mr Rawles.  God bless you.

From an interesting article about today’s Supreme Court hearing on the Chicago gun case, today’s quote is from lawyer Alan Gura

“Nobody has a legitimate reason to fear a faithful interpretation of the Constitution, and nobody has any legitimate reason to fear effective and complete protection of civil rights,” he said. “There are people who do fear what they might perceive to be a bad case following from the decision in McDonald, but the fact a future court might make an erroneous decision is no excuse to make an erroneous decision in this case.”

Hear, hear. (my bold, by the way)

When I was a kid we celebrated George Washington’s Birthday on his real birthday, the 22nd.  Then in 1971 it was moved to the third Monday of February so that the FedGov folks and teachers could all have a three day weekend.  Now-days it’s a watered down, mushy mess called “Presidents’ Day” more suited to car dealers and their phoney sales, celebrating no one and no thing in particular.

*spit*

I like George Washington better than any car dealer, so that’s who I’ll remember today (and next week).  And, for those of you who received a State sponsored provided education, here are a few George Washington quotes to whet your appetite.  Try this, on throwing off tyranny.

At a time, when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, it seems highly necessary that something should be done to avert the stroke, and maintain the liberty, which we have derived from our ancestors. But the manner of doing it, to answer the purpose effectually, is the point in question. That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment, to use arms in defence of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion. Yet arms, I would beg leave to add, should be the last resource, the dernier resort. Addresses to the throne, and remonstrances to Parliament, we have already, it is said, proved the inefficacy of. How far, then, their attention to our rights and privileges is to be awakened or alarmed, by starving their trade and manufacturers, remains to be tried.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to George Mason, Apr. 5, 1769

And a few years later he was brought to say this.

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, address to the Continental Army before the battle of Long Island, Aug. 27, 1776 

Or how about this, on the corruption of men in politics.

However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796

A truly principled man, unlike the majority of those who followed him. Worth remembering, and emulating. Our current leaders could do far better using George Washington as a standard to measure themselves by.

Spitting on Zinn’s grave?  Oh, go ahead, he’d spit on yours David, and stab you with your own civility if he had half a chance.  Good riddance, I say.

Zinn’s wretched tract, A People’s History of the United States, is worthless as history, and it is a national tragedy that so many Americans have fallen under its spell. It is a political cartoon which even the socialist magazine Dissent described as an intellectual fraud, which it is. All Zinn’s writing was directed to one end: to indict his own country as an evil state and soften his countrymen up for the kill. Like his partner in crime, Noam Chomsky, Zinn was a wicked man and his life’s work was a pernicious influence on the young and ignorant, with destructive consequences for people everywhere.

“I forfeit life itself when I wander under the power of sin.”          -Brad Chaney

“What you believe doesn’t matter… what does Scripture teach?”                - Paul Washer

There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.
                                    - James Madison

Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute socialism.    

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

                              -Frederic Bastiat

Concerning the Democrat fraud called “healthcare reform”, I think this quote from Alexander Hamilton fitting.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity.
- Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers #15

They do not know what they say. If it came to a conflict of arms, the war will last at least four years. Northern politicians will not appreciate the determination and pluck of the South, and Southern politicians do not appreciate the numbers, resources, and patient perseverance of the North. Both sides forget that we are all Americans. I foresee that our country will pass through a terrible ordeal, a necessary expiation, perhaps, for our national sins.
                       -Robert E. Lee

Are you hoping he’ll eat you last?

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.
                       - Ronald Reagan 1964 “A Time For Choosing“