Matalin’s another Peggy Noonan besides married to Serpent Head, what can you expect? She’s part of the beltway elite. When Rush is absent, I don’t listen, FWIW.
Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
George Washington
If Virtue & Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great Security.
Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, February 12, 1779
Illustrious examples are displayed to our view, that we may imitate as well as admire. Before we can be distinguished by the same honors, we must be distinguished by the same virtues. What are those virtues? They are chiefly the same virtues, which we have already seen to be descriptive of the American character — the love of liberty, and the love of law.
James Wilson, Of the Study of the Law in the United States, Circa 1790
It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.
Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America
It is certainly true that a popular government cannot flourish without virtue in the people.
Richard Henry Lee, letter to Colonel Martin Pickett, March 5, 1786
It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government.
Mercy Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, 1805
Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.
Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, November 4, 1775
Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
The Northwest Ordinance, July 23, 1787
Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
It’s exactly why I am listening to Wilkow today on Sirius.
I shut her off after about five minutes. Could not stand her voice and her habit of talking quietly then louder then quite again. Annoying as hell. Will be on tomorrow with Rush back again.
She’s a droning gasbag. As annoying to listen to as her husband.
Romney is seen as virtuous because he has not been caught cheating on his wife. She’s setting up the challenge to the socialists’ meme that Obama is cool (gansta and foreign) and Romney is “white bread” American, boring. It a personality contest with liberals.
She’s setting the table to engage it: You don’t want radical foreign gangstas in the white hut; you want a virtuous guy like Romney in the White House.
The Founders designed a government that would work well when populated by virtuous men.
15 min of her in the car on my lunch break and it was turn off the radio time, I couldn’t bear another minute of Mrs Serpenthead, worst guest host ever!
I have been under the impression for years that Rush is close personal friends with Mary and her husband, so it isn’t a surprise that he would have her “guest host” on his show.
Having said that, I have always found it very hard to listen to her.
Men are not Angels, but I’d like to think we can at least reduce the number of absolute scumballs serving in government
Excerpted below are portions of an essay from Our Ageless Constitution" related to this subject. Youth, especially, need to know that what the Founders referred to as "virtue" remains an essential support for liberty. Matalin's slant on the subject might direct us to what the Founders said about it.
America's Founders knew that it takes more than a perfect plan of government to preserve liberty. Something else is needed - some moral principle diffused among the people to unite and strengthen the urge to peaceful observance of law. They recognized that the raw materials of a free government are people who can act morally without compulsion, who do not willfully violate the rights of others, and who love liberty enough to demand that government's power is very limited. They used the word "virtuous" to describe such people. Defined by Webster, "virtue" is "a conformity to a standard of right," but whatever word is used to describe it, such a moral standard is the necessary fountainhead of a free society.
The Declaration of Independence referred to "Nature's God," the "Creator," the "Supreme judge of the World," and "Divine Providence" Our nation's founders came together, voluntarily, to create a limited government to secure for them and posterity their God-given rights to life, liberty, and property. Such liberty, they believed, rested on three great supports:
Their own words are eloquent reminders of their devotion to this belief:
Samuel Adams wrote: "Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.""Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.... It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government." - George Washington's Farewell Address
"We may look up to Armies for our defense, but virtue is our best security. It is not possible that any state should long remain free, where virtue is not supremely honored." - Samuel Adams
"Virtue must underlay all institutional arrangements if they are to be healthy and strong. The principles of democracy are as easily destroyed as human nature is corrupted!' - John Adams-------(End of quoted material)
Footnote: Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III: ISBN 0-937047-01-5
The Founders would agree with her. Virtuous people elect virtuous leaders, who establish virtuous policies.
The loss of virtue as a cultural aspiration will lead us further and further into corruption.
I am sure she was looking for Virtue when sahe married the snakehead.
Mary Matalin is not a conservative. that’s just the role she decided to play. She considers herself part of the Power Elite, and will go with the script she’s handed. Same with Carville. Same with Ann Coulter.
It’s a James Q Wilson thing - and it’s got merit. Right now the folks who run for office tend toward the narcissistic. We need people of more substance and virtue. The system we have propels a certain type forward - and it’s not the type we’re happy with. Incentives need to be changed so we get more Thomas Jefferson’s and fewer Jimmah Carters...
She has a point.
I know Rushbo needs time off but why can’t he do it when we’re asleep. I hate it when he’s absent.
I know Rushbo needs time off but why can’t he do it when we’re asleep. I hate it when he’s absent.
I turned Rush off today after listing to the Obamney love fest at the start of the show. This Obamney rump-swabbery has to stop on Rush's show.
Sickening.
So we look up to our founders because they were NOT virtuous?
Washington wasn't a paragon on character?
Get a grip. Virtue is not a dirty word. If you don't want virtue, then you elect a pack of thugs from Chicago which is exactly who we have leading Gov't right now and which is why we are failing.