Some of the many folks: Annie03; AntiBurr; Baby Bear; BJClinton; BlackbirdSST; BroncosFan; Capitalism2003; dAnconia; AAABEST; A.J.Armitage; archy ;austingirl ; BADROTOFINGER; RonPaulLives; Wolfie; Bones75; do not dup me shapka broham; eno_; Publius Scipio; bassmaner; thoughtomator; headsonpikes; Know your rights; Hemingway's Ghost; pageonetoo; mysterio; tacticalogic; bird4four4; LeGrande; WindOracle; Vigilantcitizen; Baseballguy; Beck_isright; Jack Black; blanknoone; bootless; claidheamh mor; Capitalism2003; Cathryn Crawford; CSM; dcwusmc; EBUCK; Esjay; exodus; feinswinesuksass; ForOurFuture; Galatians513; gnarled maw; grizzfan; harrowup (though he's an admitted liberal); imacatfish; jmc813; JohnGalt; JustAmy; kancel; Katya; katz; Kwilliams; Landru; Lazamataz; markcowboy; Travis McGee; t_skoz; mvpel; neverdem; newt; nunya bidness; Old_Grouch; ovrtaxt; PatrickHenry (especially edifying on logic and creationism/evolution issues); pocat; King Prout; pupdog; rattrap; Read JDM; GOPcapitalist and libertyman; (two fine pro-Southerners);Reagan Renaissance; Rennes Templar; Sir Francis Dashwood; Rowdee (though far more antiwar than I);Semaphore Heathcliffe; sheltonmac (though a bit too antiwar for me); Solitar; Sparta; stainlessbanner; steve-b (that is one sarcastic bastard); steve50; StriperSniper; Squantos; sweet_diane; Taxman; TCEF; teeman8r; Tinamina; u-89; spatzie; warmath; watcher1; WestPacSailor; WhiteGuy; Xenalyte; Nea Wood; Paul C. Jesup; DAnconia55; LeGrande; brazzaville; CzarNicky; Blood of Tyrants; Hank Rearden; Hildy; Ed Current; MRMEAN; Sabretooth; Servant of the 9; Orson Scott Card; MrLeRoy; KantianBurke; El Gato; Protagoras; gcruse; Willie Green (though he's a bit too protectionist at times, perhaps); The Honorable Ron Paul (though he's sometimes a little underappreciative of national security concerns); Christopher Hitchens, Ted Rall (though he's a crackhead liberal, it's always good to keep one on the reading list to stay apprised of the opposition's "arguments"), Neal Boortz, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Joseph Sobran, Caesar, Christopher Moore, Christopher Buckley, William F. Buckley, Mark Steyn, Homer, Cato (both on and off FR :), and of course,

Grampa Jack

(you'll find him at jpfo.org)

---

POETRY I LIKE

It rhymes, so it's real poetry. It doesn't rhyme, it's prose. Any idget can talk without rhyming. It takes a wordsmith to tell a story to a certain format, including poetry.

Abou Ben Adhem (by Leigh Hunt)

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight of his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
'What writest thou?'
The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered 'The names of those who love the Lord.'
'And is mine one?' said Abou. 'Nay, not so,'
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said 'I pray thee then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.'

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names who love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

The Landlord's Tale (by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in 'Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, --
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said, "Good night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade, --
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay, --
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! As he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled, --
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm, --
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Brother Jonathan's Lament for Sister Caroline (by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.)

She has gone -- she has left us in passion and pride, --
Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side!
She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow,
And turned on her brother the face of a foe!

O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,
We can never forget that our hearts have been one, --
Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name,
From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame!

You were always too ready to fire at a touch;
But we said: "She is hasty, -- she does not mean much."
We have scowled when you uttered some turbulent threat;
But Friendship still whispered: "Forgive and forget!"

Has our love all died out? Have its altars grown cold?
Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold?
Then Nature must teach us the strength of the chain
That her petulant children would sever in vain.

They may fight till the buzzards are gorged with their spoil, --
Till the harvest grows black as it rots in the soil,
Till the wolves and the catamounts troop from their caves,
And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of the waves:

In vain is the strife! When its fury is past,
Their fortunes must flow in one channel at last,
As the torrents that rush from the mountains of snow
Roll mingled in peace through the valleys below.

Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky;
Man breaks not the medal when God cuts the die!
Though darkened with sulfur, though cloven with steel,
The blue arch will brighten, the waters will heal!

O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,
There are battles with Fate that can never be won!
The star-flowering banner must never be furled,
For its blossoms of light are the hope of the world!

Go, then, our rash sister! afar and aloof, --
Run wild in the sunshine away from our roof;
But when your heart aches and your feet have grown sore,
Remember the pathway that leads to our door!

Farewell to Brother Jonathan (by Caroline)

Farewell! we must part; we have turned from the land
Of our cold-hearted brother, with tyrannous hand,
Who assumed all our rights as a favor to grant,
And whose smile ever covered the sting of a taunt;

Who breathed on the fame he was bound to defend,--
Still the craftiest foe, 'neath the guise of a friend;
Who believed that our bosoms would bleed at a touch,
Yet could never believe he could goad them too much;

Whose conscience affects to be seared with our sin,
Yet is plastic to take all its benefits in;
The mote in our eye so enormous has grown,
That he never perceives there's a beam in his own.

O, Jonathan, Jonathan! vassal of pelf,
Self-righteous, self-glorious, yes, every inch self,
Your loyalty now is all bluster and boast,
But was dumb when the foemen invaded our coast.

In vain did your country appeal to you then,
You coldly refused her your money and men;
Your trade interrupted, you slunk from her wars,
And preferred British gold to the Stripes and the Stars!

Then our generous blood was as water poured forth,
And the sons of the South were the shields of the North;
Nor our patriot ardor one moment gave o'er,
Till the foe you had fed we had driven from the shore!

Long years we have suffered opprobrium and wrong,
But we clung to your side with affection so strong,
That at last, in mere wanton aggression, you broke
All the ties of our hearts with one murderous stroke.

We are tired of contest for what is our own,
We are sick of a strife that could never be done;
Thus our love has died out, and its altars are dark,
Not Prometheus's self could rekindle the spark.

O Jonathan, Jonathan! deadly the sin
Of your tigerish thirst for the blood of your kin;
And shameful the spirit that gloats over wives
And maidens despoiled of their honor and lives!

Your palaces rise from the fruits of our toil.
Your millions are fed from the wealth of our soil;
The balm of our air brings the health to your cheek,
And our hearts are aglow with the welcome we speak.

O brother! beware how you seek us again,
Lest you brand on your forehead the signet of Cain;
That blood and that crime on your conscience must sit;
We may fall--we may perish--but never submit!

The pathway that leads to the Pharisee's door
We remember, indeed, but we tread it no more;
Preferring to turn, with the Publican's faith,
To the path through the valley and shadow of death!

Tommy (by Rudyard Kipling)

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

The Toast of Morgan's Men (by Captain Thorpe, Ky.)

Unclaimed by the land that bore us,
Lost in the land, we find
The brave have gone before us;
Cowards are left behind.
Then stand to your glasses, steady;
Here's a health to those we prize.
Here's a toast to the dead already,
And here's to the next who dies.

The Charge Of The Light Brigade (by Alfred Lord Tennyson)

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not,
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

The Road Not Taken (by Robert Frost)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

The Star-Spangled Banner (by Francis Scott Key)

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight'
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen, thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream;
'Tis the star-spangled banner: oh, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh, thus be it ever when free men shall stand,
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that has made and preserved us as a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust";
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

A Job for McGuinness (by Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson)

Oh, it's dreadful to think in a country like this
With its chances for work - and enjoyment
That a man like McGuinness was certain to miss
Whenever he tried for employment.

He wrote to employers from Bondi to Bourke,
From Woolloomooloo to Glen Innes,
But he found - though his wife could get plenty of work -
There was never a job for McGuinness.

But perhaps - later on - when the Chow and the Jap
Begin to drift down from the tropics,
When a big yellow stain spreading over the map
Provides some disquieting topics,

Oh, it's then when they're wanting a man that will stand
In the trench where his own kith and kin is,
With a frown on his face and a gun in his hand -
Then there might be a job for McGuinness!

Clancy of the Overflow (by Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson)

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just "on spec", addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow".

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city,
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow".

Waltzing Matilda (by Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson)

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong,
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watch'd and waited till his billy boiled,
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me.

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda,
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me,
And he sang as he watch'd and waited till his billy boiled,
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me.

Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he shoved that jumback in his tucker bag,
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me.

Up rode the squatter mounted on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three,
Whose that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me.

Up jumped the swagman, sprang into the billabong,
You'll never catch me alive said he,
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me.

The Man from Snowy River (by Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson)

Was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from Old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses -- he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.

There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up --
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle-girths would stand,
He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.

And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast,
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony -- three parts thoroughbred at least --
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry -- just the sort that won't say die --
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.
But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, "That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop -- lad, you'd better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you.
"So he waited sad and wistful -- only Clancy stood his friend --
"I think we ought to let him come," he said;
"I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred."

"He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."

So he went -- they found the horses by the big mimosa clump --
They raced away towards the mountain's brow,
And the old man gave his orders, "Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills."

So Clancy rode to wheel them -- he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stock-horse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.
Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.

And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, "We may bid the mob good day,
No man can hold them down the other side.
"When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took a pull,
It well might make the boldest hold their breath,
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.

But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.
He sent the flint stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat --
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringy barks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,
At the bottom of that terrible descent.

He was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill,
And the watchers on the mountain standing mute,
Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still,
As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.
Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.

And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam.
He followed like a bloodhound on their track,
Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.

And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around the Overflow the reedbeds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The man from Snowy River is a household word to-day,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.

Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do (by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins)

There ain't nothin' I can do, nor nothin' I can say,
That folks don't criticize me.
But I'm gonna do just as I want to anyway,
I don't care if they all despise me.
If I should take a notion
To jump into the ocean,
It ain't nobody's business if I do.

Rather than persecute me,
I choose that you would shoot me,
It ain't nobody's business if I do.
If I should get the feelin'
To dance upon the ceiling',
It ain't nobody's business if I do.

If I let my best companion
Drive me right into the canyon,
It ain't nobody's business if I do.
After all the way to do is do just as you please,
Regardless of their talkin'
Often times the ones that talk will get down on their knees,
And beg your pardon for their squawkin'.

If I dislike my lover
And leave her for another,
It ain't nobody's business if I do.
If I go to church on Sunday,
Then cabaret on Monday,
It ain't nobody's business if I do.

If my friend ain't got no money
And I say, "Take all mine, honey,"
It ain't nobody's business if I do.
If I lend him my last nickel
And it leaves me in a pickle,
It ain't nobody's business if I do.

The Chaos (by G. Nolst 'Charivarius' Trenite)

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you busy, Suzy
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Jabberwocky (by Lewis Carroll)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Perfect High or The Quest for Gimmesome Roy (by Shel Silverstein)

There once was a boy named Gimmesome Roy. He was nothing like me or you.
'Cause laying back and getting high was all he cared to do.
As a kid, he sat in the cellar, sniffing airplane glue.
And then he smoked bananas -- which was then the thing to do.
He tried aspirin in Coca-Cola, breathed helium on the sly,
And his life was just one endless search to find that perfect high.
But grass just made him want to lay back and eat chocolate-chip pizza all night,
And the great things he wrote while he was stoned looked like shit in the morning light.
And speed just made him rap all day, reds just laid him back,
And Cocaine Rose was sweet to his nose, but the price nearly broke his back.
He tried PCP and THC, but they didn't quite do the trick,
And poppers nearly blew his heart and mushrooms made him sick.
Acid made him see the light, but he couldn't remember it long.
And hashish was just a little too weak, and smack was a lot too strong,
And Quaaludes made him stumble, and booze just made him cry,
Till he heard of a cat named Baba Fats who knew of the perfect high.

Now, Baba Fats was a hermit cat who lived up in Nepal,
High on a craggy mountaintop, up a sheer and icy wall.
"But hell," says Roy, "I'm a healthy boy, and I'll crawl or climb or fly,
But I'll find that guru who'll give me the clue as to what's the perfect high."
So out and off goes Gimmesome Roy to the land that knows no time,
Up a trail no man could conquer to a cliff no man could climb.
For fourteen years he tries that cliff, then back down again he slides
Then sits--and cries--and climbs again, pursuing the perfect high.
He's grinding his teeth, he's coughing blood, he's aching and shaking and weak,
As starving and sore and bleeding and tore, he reaches the mountain peak.
And his eyes blink red like a snow-blind wolf, and he snarls the snarl of a rat,
As there in perfect repose and wearing no clothes--sits the godlike Baba Fats.

"What's happening, Fats?" says Roy with joy, "I've come to state my biz.
I hear you're hip to the perfect trip. Please tell me what it is.
For you can see," says Roy to he, "that I'm about to die,
So for my last ride, Fats, how can I achieve the perfect high?"
"Well, dog my cats!" says Baba Fats. "here's one more burnt-out soul,
Who's looking for some alchemist to turn his trip to gold.
But you won't find it in no dealer's stash, or on no druggist's shelf.
Son, if you would seek the perfect high -- find it in yourself."

"Why, you jive motherfucker!" screamed Gimmesome Roy,
"I've climbed through rain and sleet,
I've lost three fingers off my hands and four toes off my feet!
I've braved the lair of the polar bear and tasted the maggot's kiss.
Now, you tell me the high is in myself. What kind of shit is this?
My ears 'fore they froze off," says Roy, "had heard all kind of crap,
But I didn't climb for fourteen years to listen to that sophomore rap.
And I didn't crawl up here to hear that the high is on the natch,
So you tell me where the real stuff is or I'll kill your guru ass!"

Ok, OK," says Baba Fats, "you're forcing it out of me.
There is a land beyond the sun that's known as Zaboli.
A wretched land of stone and sand where snakes and buzzards scream,
And in this devil's garden blooms the mystic Tzu-Tzu tree.
And every ten years it blooms one flower as white as the Key West sky,
And he who eats of the Tzu-Tzu flower will know the perfect high.
For the rush comes on like a tidal wave and it hits like the blazing sun.
And the high, it lasts a lifetime and the down don't ever come.
But the Zaboli land is ruled by a giant who stands twelve cubits high.
With eyes of red in his hundred heads, he waits for the passers-by.
And you must slay the red-eyed giant, and swim the River of Slime,
Where the mucous beasts, they wait to feast on those who journey by.
And if you survive the giant and the beasts and swim that slimy sea,
There's a blood-drinking witch who sharpens her teeth as she guards that Tzu-Tzu tree."
"To hell with your witches and giants," laughs Roy. "To hell with the beasts of the sea.
As long as the Tzu-Tzu flower blooms, some hope still blooms for me."
And with tears of joy in his snow-blind eye, Roy hands the guru a five,
Then back down the icy mountain he crawls, pursuing that perfect high.

"Well, that is that," says Baba Fats, sitting back down on his stone,
Facing another thousand years of talking to God alone.
"It seems, Lord", says Fats, "it's always the same, old men or bright-eyed youth,
It's always easier to sell them some shit than it is to give them the truth."

Topless Town (by Shel Silverstein)

It all started out at Rosalie's Good Eats Cafe
Everybody sittin', eatin' eggs and grits, chattin' in the usual way
Lucy pourin' the coffee and dishin' out the eats
Wearin' one of them flimsy, frilly white blouses with nothin' underneath.

Then--a spark flies out of Judge McCory's cigar
Lands on Lucy--and sets her blouse on fire
Just a whoosh--and she's minus the top of her dress
Well, if you read that evenin's Banner, you know the rest--
How Big Jay Wilkes, a trucker for Mountain South,
Smothered her up in his big bear arms and squeezed and put her out
Then she goes a-runnin' for the Ladies' room like a shot
But not before everybody in the place seen everything she got.

Well, the word spread just as fast as that fire did
And next mornin' the cafe's crowded with old men, young men and kids
Hootin' and hollerin', stools spinnin' 'round like this
Hopin' and prayin' to get a little glimpse of what they'd missed
But naturally, Lucy ain't givin' nobody a treat
She's buttoned up to here and blushin' like a beet
And soon's all the boys see that there ain't no show
They all leave, grumblin' how they ain't comin' back no more.

Then Rosalie takes Lucy aside, and she says, "Listen, Babe,
We're losin' money, and I see a chance to get saved
Now what if you was to dress like you did yesterday
And we change the name to Rosalie's Topless Cafe?"
Well, Lucy reacts with fury and moral indignation
But they finally settle on a buck-an-hour raise and an extra week's vacation
And next mornin' she shows up au natural, as the French folks say
At the historic grand opening of Rosalie's Topless Cafe.

Talk about a hit! They're packed in and linin' up
A cover and a minimum--coffee $2 a cup
Lucy's pullin' down a thousand a week with tips and all
Workin' double shifts while startin' to bitch how
Her arches are beginning to fall.

Well, then Brenda on the night shift, she sees the tips Lucy's got
So the very next evenin' she shows up for work without no top
And two days later the cashier, Betsy Black
Come in and give Rosalie the shirt right off her back
Well, they come by the thousands to eat and drink and look
Soon Rosalie's gotta hire Fat Phyllis a second cook
"Well, I guess," says Phyllis, "y'gotta do like them Romans do,"
So she rips off her T-shirt and starts stirrin' up the stew.
But when Ed the busboy starts' enjoyin' things a little too much
She puts up a sign in the kitchen sayin' LOOK. DON'T TOUCH.
And Rosalie's payin' off her mortgage and puttin' her boy through school
Gotta hire a topless bouncer to keep things cool
And a carpark to keep up with the crowd outside
She says, "I always knew the good Lord would provide."

Then Jan at the Double J Luncheonette 'cross the street
Says "Hey, if they wanna play hardball, we got 'em beat."
So she and June put on their topless exhibition
And soon they're givin' Rosalie's stiff, stiff competition.
Well, then ol' Sam Pierce down at Pierce's Hardware Store
He repaints the sign outside his door
And the next day ol' Miz Pierce and her daughter Gayle
Are toplessly scoopin' out galvanized nails.

Then Reverend Peters says, "Folks it's a tough decision
But the Lord can't get run off by this competition."
So next Sunday therer's a topless ladies' choir in harmony
In a heartfelt rendition of Nearer My God to Thee."

Well zap!--it all takes off just like a shot
Les Willis opens his Topless Bait and Tackle Shop
And when the Farmers' Bank unveiled topless tellers
The interest rate sure went up amongst the fellers.

Well, Frank Willis hires a topless hostess at the Golden Cactus
Tom Rooney, proprietor of Tommy's Place, says that's unfair labor practice
So he sends to Milwaukee for a girl called Thirty-Eight Kate
And in less than a week he's stole half of Frank's business away.

And the tourists--they're pourin' in, honkin' and raisin' hell
Payin' $200 a night for a room at Tom's Topless Motel
Eatin' Rosalie's $4 burgers, no bun on top
Buyin' suntan lotion at our topless Stop and Shop.
Payin' $12.95 for a T-shirt from Topless Jean's
And payin' $50 for an autographed photo with Lucy,
Our original topless queen.
And Sister Rhodes says, "Our cup runneth over. We are truly blessed
'Cause they're makin' big contributions to our community chest."

Then the merchants' association of our town
Realizin' how the economy's been saggin' down
They call a meetin' and they search deep down in their souls
They take a vote and say, "Let the good times roll."

Well, soon there's a topless pharmacy and a topless shoe repair
The 4-H Club plannin' a topless county fair
There's a topless McDonald's and a topless rent-a-car
Only one hurtin' was Ed's Topless Go-Go Bar
Ed said he might as well close up and go fishin'
Or go bottomless to keep abreast of the competition.

Peter Lane says, "We all gotta do what we must
And the ones who don't have a feel for it'll just go bust"
Then Joe Hall of the Banner does an editorial:
"Let this be the binding bra's final memorial
Let our women enjoy unbridled liberation
And let our men be protected from fraud and falsification."

But Miss Agatha Baines of the Citizens for Decency
Says, " We cannot encourage these dens of iniquity
They're just tryin' to titillate the young men in this town"
And they go to Judge McCory for an order to close 'em all down
And they find him havin' a nip at Ma's Mammary Bar
Talkin' 'bout runnin' for governor and still puffin' on that big cigar

But he rules--from his stool--that "Regardless of shape, color and size
It's just an uplifting example of free enterprise
And anyone who has discouragin' words to say
Is against small business and the good ol' American way"
So Miss Agatha rips off her blouse patriotically
And yells, "Let them Japanese try to compete with these."

Well, that blows the lid off--before the week is past
We got topless gas station attendants pumpin' gas
Eileen Hobbs and her topless hot dog stand
The Lubbuc sisters in their topless moving van
Lou's Barber Shop filled with topless tourists
Gettin' topless manicures from topless manicurists
Topless majorettes in the Rotary marching band
A concert with ol' Miss Murgatroyd settin' topless at the baby grand
And the cheerleaders' team from the class of '69
All workin' the counter of the topless five-and-dime
Jim Dawson's wife runs for mayor on the topless ticket
And she was way out front -- till Jim decided to picket
Well, that opened the door for librarian Lauralene Grace
Who beat her by a nose, I tell you, it was some kind of race.

Doc Hamilton's backed up doin' implants and collagen injections
Liz Mason and her Topless Party sweep the fall elections
But some thought Jenny Hollman was a bit too crass
Showin' up topless to teach her eighth grade class
But she proved that thanks to her PhD cup
Attendance was perfect and attention was way up.

There are topless weddings and topless divorces
Topless equestrians showin' their horses
Topless druggists at the pharmacy
Topless checkout girls at the A&P
Topless gall drivin' topless cars
Topless meetings of the DAR
Topless adjusters at the Title and Trust
Topless policewomen makin' busts
Topless doctors, topless paramedics
Topless anesthesiologists givin' anesthetics
Topless joggers, topless hikers
Hitchin' rides with topless bikers
Topless brokers and CPAs
Topless mamas at the PTA
Topless lady construction workers
Topless acrobats at the Shrine circus.

So the housewives join in and soon you can see 'em all
Shoppin' topless, pushin' little topless strollers through the topless mall
Topless firefighters and meter maids
And Lucy, the queen of the Topless Day Parade
A booth in Seely Park for topless tourist information
Topless Mammorial Day celebrations
And everyone's happy, 'cept for Lola at Lola's Lingerie
She says camisoles are down, and she can't give bras away

Soon it spreads across the ocean--hear the tramp-tramp-tramp
Of topless models walking down topless ramps
Talk about decollete, we're rewriting the book
Givin' the world the revolutionary topless look
Dior's scared silly, St. Laurent's got the jitters
We got the whole damn fashion world all a-titter.

No more legislation that this must stop
Now they're trying to pass a law that you cannot wear a top
While our topless city council circulates a ballot 'round
To change our name officially to Topless Town
And every one of our citizens votes yes
Except for skinny Nancy Cobb with the flat, bony chest
So the sign gets changed to TOPLESS TOWN--POP.: 1704
'Course by the time the paint dries, there's about a thousand more
Then Matt Hanks, our stonecutter, climbs up Lookout Bluff
Says, "We'll have our own Mount Rushmore soon enough"
And he blasts and he hammers and he chisels in the proper places
And next day, there's a giant pair of--well, not exactly presidents' faces.

And the women's groups? Why, they're pleased as they can be
Because they finally got financial equality
"Equality?" screams Nancy Cobb
"Those big-busted babes now got all the jobs."
So she writes to Washington that very night
In a passionate plea for boobless rights.

The president says, "Hey, what's goin' on down there?"
Don't they know there's laws 'bout what they can and can't wear?
Have they lost all their sense of propriety?
Someone must have laced their reservoir with LSD
It's Sodom and Gomorrah--a flagrant abuse of bein' free
Showin' kids what they was never meant to see!
And if they don't defer to decency's demands
I'll have to go there myself and take the situation in hand."

Then the press gets hold of it, and Monday there's our topless queen
Dishin' out hash on the cover of Time magazine
Then Hollywood comes bangin' through our doors
Wantin' to give out Golden Globe Awards
And every evenin' on the boob tube, the whole country can see our faces
And the attorney general announces this is gonna be one of her priority cases
And then the Senate and the House, they jump on in
Sayin, "Don't you know it's a crime and a shame and a sin?
And if you don't button up, zip up and snap up today
We gonna take every cent of your federal subsidies away."

Then you should have seen the notice the Supreme Court sent us
Declarin' us unconstitutional and Judge McCory non compos mentis
And statin' in language spiteful, specific and strong
That we better put our natural resources back where they belong.

But who in the hell do they think they're bossing around?
Not us pioneer, upstandin' citizens of Topless Town
Judge McCory says after due deliberation
"It's a clear-cut case of federal intimidation"
Then Joe Tanners says, "Damn the government and damn the courts
We don't need 'em--this town was built on self-support."

Ol' Miz Fletcher says, "This country's goin' down the tubes
They must think we're all just a bunch of boobs
They're our bosom buddies when it's time to pay tax and all that
Now they wanna go cut off our funds and just leave us flat"
Then Ellie McKay stands up and starts to rant and rave
Shoutin', "Ain't this the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Well, I feel a lot freer without that ol' boulder holder of mine
And I'm brave enough to stand up and let my little lights shine."

And from the Salvation Army steps up Katie West
She says, "I got a couple things I gotta get off my chest"
She says, "We got no more homeless, no unemployed
Because men have somethin' to reach for and the women are overjoyed
So I wanna tell these knockers of liberty
I ain't gonna let 'em put no halter on me
And if they keep makin' threats about a federal bust
It's gonna case a major cleavage 'tween Washington and us.

"Tell the president that according to the Constitution
We got the right to dress ourselves without federal intrusion
The right to take off what's tight and what don't fit
The right to pay our rent and buy our grits
The right to improve our lot by usin' our wits
The right to bear arms--and also to bear tits."

So we take a vote--the whole damn town
And announce unanimously:
"Topless Town hereby secedes from the Union
Because the Union wouldn't let us be."
And we declare ourselves an independent
Self-determined sovereign state
And we build a tall wall around us all--
No roads, no bridges, no gate
And we pledge allegiance to our flag
Two…well, you know what they are
And I ain't puttin' down Old Glory
But they're prettier than stripes and stars
And we're free and unbridled
Behind these ivy-covered walls
And you drive by on the freeway and
Never notice us here at all.

Yeah, we got no taxes--we got no crime
But we got no room to spare
You'd like to come visit? I'll bet you would
But, friends, you ain't got a prayer--
Topless Town's stayin' safe and sound--
You can't get here from there.

Casey at the Bat (by Ernest L. Thayer)

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day,
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair.
The rest clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast.
They thought, "if only Casey could but get a whack at that.
We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake;
and the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake.

So upon that stricken multitude, grim melancholy sat;
for there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all.
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball.

And when the dust had lifted,
and men saw what had occurred,
there was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
it rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;

it pounded through on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat;
for Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place,
there was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.

And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
no stranger in the crowd could doubt t'was Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt.
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.

Then, while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
and Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.

Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped --
"That ain't my style," said Casey.

"Strike one!" the umpire said.
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
like the beating of the storm waves on a stern and distant shore.

"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand,
and it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity, great Casey's visage shone,
he stilled the rising tumult, he bade the game go on.

He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew,
but Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two!"

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.

They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
and they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, the teeth are clenched in hate.
He pounds, with cruel violence, his bat upon the plate.

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
and now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,

but there is no joy in Mudville--
mighty Casey has struck out.

Ghost Riders In The Sky (by Stan Jones)

An old cowpoke went riding out one dark and windy day
Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way
When all at once a mighty herd of red eyed cows he saw
A-plowing through the ragged sky and up the cloudy draw

Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel
Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky
For he saw the Riders coming hard and he heard their mournful cry

Yippee-I-Ay
Yippee-I-Oh
Ghost riders in the sky

Their faces gaunt, their eyes were blurred, their shirts all soaked with sweat
They're riding hard to catch that herd, but they ain't caught 'em yet
'Cause they've got to ride forever on that range up in the sky
On horses snorting fire
As they ride on hear their cry

As the riders loped on by him he heard one call his name
If you want to save your soul from Hell a-riding on our range
Then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride
Trying to catch the Devil's herd, across these endless skies

Yippee-I-Ay
Yippee-I-Oh
Ghost riders in the sky
Ghost riders in the sky

Look Away (by John Anderson)

Bobby took a trip to his Georgia hometown,
to the land of dreams,
just to have a look around
He parked his car at the courthouse square,
but it was like a ghost town,
there was nobody there
And Jim's Drugstore was a tanning salon
He asked an old man, "Where's ev'rybody gone?"
He found them out at the shopping center,
where Highway One meets Interstate Twenty
The country boys weren't wearing overalls,
They were wearing suits made of camouflage
Southern belles talking like "Valley Girls"
He scratched his head and said, "What in the world?"

Dixie's had a facelift,
I guess she's looking better,
but I kinda liked the old one,
I never will forget her
Look away
Look away
Look away, Dixieland

Johnny took a trip to his Florida hometown,
to the land of his dreams,
just to have a look around
At first he thought he was on the wrong road
'Cause he didn't see any orange groves
Now, trailer parks and condos grew
on the land that he once knew
He saw the city limits sign
And guessed he'd crossed the city line
There were strangers everywhere he went,
without sport shirts and strange accents
They took the north and they moved it south
He said, "Shut my redneck mouth!"

Dixie's had a facelift,
I guess she's looking better,
but I kinda liked the old one,
I never will forget her
Look away
Look away
Look away, Dixieland

Billy took a trip to his Tennessee town,
to the land of his dreams,
just to have a look around
He drove his car down Music Row
to look up stars he used to know
But the secretaries wouldn't let him in,
Said "Leave your name and call again"
So, he thought he'd get some barbeque
at a little place that he once knew
But all he found were sushi bars
and dealerships for foreign cars,
and buildings that reached for the sky
He said, "Where the hell am I?"

Dixie's had a facelift,
I guess she's looking better,
but I kinda liked the old one,
I never will forget her
Look away
Look away
Look away, Dixieland

Look away
Gone away
Far away
Dixieland.

Pandas (by Corky and the Juice Pigs)

White and black, the friendly bears of China
White and black, they rarely reproduce
What shall be done about these Chinese bears?
What shall be done about these friendly bears?

Die, they must die
The pandas must die
Die, they must die
The pandas must die
Yay!

Why should we save them?
What good do they do?
Have you ever seen a panda
Do something good for you?
They can't wear t-shirts,
They can't bounce basketballs
They can't walk tightropes
Over Niagara Falls

Die, they must die
The pandas must die
Die, they must die
The pandas must die
You fat bastard!

All endangered species
Leave endangered feces
If you knew how bad they smelled
You would gladly take their pelt
If we kill them all
We can have more parking lots
We can have small couches
Made of little ocelots

Die, they must die
The pandas must die
Die, they must die
The pandas must die

The Men That Don't Fit In (by Robert W. Service)

There's A race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far,
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost; He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

I Like Beer (by Tom T. Hall)

In some of my songs,
I have casually mentioned
The fact that I like to drink beer
This little song,
is more to the point
so roll out the barrel and lend me your ear:

I like beer.
It makes me a jolly good fellow.
I like beer.
It helps me unwind and sometimes it makes me feel mellow
(makes him feel mellow)
Whiskey's too rough,
champagne costs too much,
vodka puts my mouth in gear.
This little refrain
should help me explain
as a matter of fact,
I like beer
(he likes beer)

My wife often frowns
when we're out on the town
and I'm wearing a suit and a tie
She's sipping vermouth,
and she thinks I'm uncouth,
when I yell as the waiter goes by

I like beer.
It makes me a jolly good fellow.
I like beer.
It helps me unwind and sometimes it makes me feel mellow
(makes him feel mellow)
Whiskey's too rough,
champagne costs too much,
vodka puts my mouth in gear.
This little refrain
should help me explain
as a matter of fact,
I like beer
(he likes beer)

Last night, I dreamed
that I passed from the scene,
and I went to a place so sublime,
all the water was clear and tasted like beer--
then they turned it all into wine (awww).

I like beer.
It makes me a jolly good fellow.
I like beer.
It helps me unwind and sometimes it makes me feel mellow.
(makes him feel mellow)
Whiskey's too rough,
champagne costs too much,
vodka puts my mouth in gear.
This little refrain
should help me explain
as a matter of fact,
I LOVE beer.
(yes, he likes beer)

The White Man's Burden (by Rudyard Kipling)

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

The Old Issue (by Rudyard Kipling)

Here is nothing new nor aught unproven,” say the Trumpets,
    “Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.
“It is the King—the King we schooled aforetime!”
    (Trumpets in the marshes—in the eyot at Runnymede!)

“Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger,” peal the Trumpets,
    “Pardon for his penitence or pity for his fall.
“It is the King!”—inexorable Trumpets—
    (Trumpets round the scaffold at the dawning by Whitehall!)

“He hath veiled the Crown and hid the Sceptre,” warn the Trumpets,
    “He hath changed the fashion of the lies that cloak his will.
“Hard die the Kings—ah hard—dooms hard!” declare the Trumpets,
    Trumpets at the gang-plank where the brawling troop-decks fill!

Ancient and Unteachable, abide—abide the Trumpets!
    Once again the Trumpets, for the shuddering ground-swell brings
Clamour over ocean of the harsh, pursuing Trumpets—
    Trumpets of the Vanguard that have sworn no truce with Kings!

All we have of freedom, all we use or know—
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.

Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw—
Leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the Law.

Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing
Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the King.

Till our fathers 'stablished, after bloody years,
How our King is one with us, first among his peers.

So they bought us freedom—not at little cost
Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost,

Over all things certain, this is sure indeed,
Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.

Give no ear to bondsmen bidding us endure.
Whining “He is weak and far”; crying “Time shall cure.”,

(Time himself is witness, till the battle joins,
Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people's loins.)

Give no heed to bondsmen masking war with peace.
Suffer not the old King here or overseas.

They that beg us barter—wait his yielding mood—
Pledge the years we hold in trust—pawn our brother's blood—

Howso' great their clamour, whatsoe'er their claim,
Suffer not the old King under any name!

Here is naught unproven—here is naught to learn.
It is written what shall fall if the King return.

He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name.

He shall take a tribute, toll of all our ware;
He shall change our gold for arms—arms we may not bear.

He shall break his judges if they cross his word;
He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord.

He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring
Watchers 'neath our window, lest we mock the King—

Hate and all division; hosts of hurrying spies;
Money poured in secret, carrion breeding flies.

Strangers of his counsel, hirelings of his pay,
These shall deal our Justice: sell—deny—delay.

We shall drink dishonour, we shall eat abuse
For the Land we look to—for the Tongue we use.

We shall take our station, dirt beneath his feet,
While his hired captains jeer us in the street.

Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun,
Far beyond his borders shall his teachings run.

Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled,
Laying on a new land evil of the old—

Long-forgotten bondage, dwarfing heart and brain—
All our fathers died to loose he shall bind again.

Here is naught at venture, random nor untrue—
Swings the wheel full-circle, brims the cup anew.

Here is naught unproven, here is nothing hid:
Step for step and word for word—so the old Kings did!

Step by step, and word by word: who is ruled may read.
Suffer not the old Kings: for we know the breed—

All the right they promise—all the wrong they bring.
Stewards of the Judgment, suffer not this King!

I ain't no role model, either. Never claimed to be. Form your own political positions. It's not the LP, or the GOP, or the Constitution Party, or any group's place to decide for you. Use your own judgment of what government should be doing, based upon reason, not emotion or affiliation. I don't represent the LP, or stand for the LP. My freepername is about giving a perspective on who I am and where I was at the time I stopped lurking. That's it.

"My principles were not developed by me "as a Libertarian." They evolved over a period of time by applying rational thought to the unique situations presented by different scenarios. On some issues I would be called quite conservative, liberal or libertarian on others. Only an intellectually lazy fool allows his complete ideology to be handed to him by some political philosophy."
- Neal Boortz

Additionally, my freepername does not appoint me target for the LP's hatemail, nor did I nominate myself spokesman for the LP. I'm not even an LP member or financial supporter. If you are posting on FR and still haven't figured out that someone's name doesn't tell you everything you need to know about them, I hope you run into a cop named Dick that proves you right.

To those who still would like to whine about Libertarians, or complain that I'm not listing where I live, or whatever else it is that you want to know about me or bitch about, well, wahhh. That's life. It sucks. Get a helmet. I really don't give a rat's fat tuckus if you'd like to reply to me in person, you don't like my politics, or you wanna know exactly TO where it is that I'm exiled. I love America--I just had to leave it for a while because of my occupation. And it doesn't matter where I'm posting FROM, but where I posted TO: I posted online, so get a pair and reply online. I don't care if you're from DesMoines or Daytona. I'll reply if you actually have a well considered point of view, not just lame harassment from self-styled 'conservatives,' you typical military-industrial RINO types (you know, the ones that Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, a great general and a president who was the last of his breed, warned us about). Finally, don't think you're any more special than other folks who don't like my opinions, `cause there's a line of `em, and you ain't first. Those of us who are real conservatives are used to being told we're wrong.

"Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it."
- G.K. Chesterton

That is not to say I wouldn't welcome incorporation sometimes. All is better than some. But none is better than all, if you believe (as I do) that local governments constrained by state constitutions should be far more powerful than a distant federal government constrained by the Constitution.

"All government is an ugly necessity."
- G.K. Chesterton

But in the meantime, my ideas have been right more than anyone else's--the more that small, free countries have been allowed to have free flow of ideas and free markets, in a legal system that provides relatively equal justice under law, with as little restraint as possible from government, the more they have demonstrated their superiority over every economic and political system on the planet. Build a strong enough central government, even one voted for by good men, and it will eventually be controlled by evil men. We're well on our way.

"I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone."
- H.L. Mencken

    

Reagan brought a constellation of virtues to the office of the presidency—guts, compassion, humor, a lack of pretension, a willingness to face the world and tell the truth, a willingness to make decisions and stand by them—and his leadership changed the world, and for the better. As president, he was a giant.
- Peggy Noonan

"The question whether one generation has the right to bind another by a deficit it imposes is a question of such consequence as to place it among the fundamental principles of our government. We should consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts and morally bound to pay for them ourselves. "
- Thomas Jefferson

Social Security should be ENDED. Not mended. Not fixed. Not strengthened. ENDED. Screw phasing it out. Buy it out. Give the money, in a big fat gummint check, that Social Security-age and near-SS age folks (say, up to age 50) put in, back to them. With interest--but taxable as income (which it would have been if never taken out of people's income to begin with). Let everyone else out, with no payout at age 62 or 65 or 67. SS is OVER. End payroll taxes for SS purposes.

"Social Security is simply a tax. Like all taxes, the money collected is spent immediately as general revenues to fund the federal government. The Social Security trust fund does not exist, and Social Security 'surpluses' are nothing more than an accounting ledger showing that contributions exceeded benefits paid for a given calendar year--not that the excess was put aside...Allowing people to opt out of Social Security would force the federal government to admit it has been stealing money from Social Security for decades...No matter what politicians promise, Social Security reform will not change the fact that your money is taken from your paycheck and sent to Washington, where it will be spent."
- Ron Paul

Reform is a joke! The only way to 'reform' Social Security and do so fairly is END IT ENTIRELY. Seems likely taxes would have to be increased on everyone to handle that initial payout, but then, SS's final payouts would be taxable as income, then as they would be either sitting in bank accounts or pissed away on things that ARE taxed, we might be double dipping on that money--so maybe taxes wouldn't have to be increased too long, as the economy benefited from that burst of freed up, non-government controlled money. Seniors take a hit in paying taxes on the dough. Non-seniors don't get any of the stolen money back. Someone's got to pay for these old farts--it should be their families, and if it's not going to be, why should it be you and me? Why are WE culpable for their families' mistake or THEIR mistake for pissing on their families?

I don't believe in redistributionism, and I don't believe in government being involved in charity. Far too many people do. That is why the Social Security program is there, and it's why it must end, if only to demonstrate the difference ending it would make in people's lives.

"Providing for the well-being of the young is how every generation of Americans has traditionally undertaken their stewardship. Except ours."
- Paul Tsongas

"Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B','A' is most likely a scoundrel."
- H.L. Mencken

I'm not eager to support any war, and I'm not sure I can be against wars anywhere without being called a bleeding heart pacifist whiner by someone. But I sure liked seeing us act unilaterally in Iraq, and not worrying about the U.N. A return to a foreign policy of pure imperialism or isolationism would be infinitely preferable to the milquetoast 'protection of commercial and national security interests' we occasionally dip our toe into today, however. Perhaps that blood for oil crap isn't true, but on the other hand, I'm not sure what the point really is, either, if we're not either annexing the land we liberate or extending constitutional republican principles and getting the hell OUT.

"It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."
- General Douglas MacArthur

I was behind the second Gulf intervention, not before about mid-February '02, but solidly after that. As plain as I could see it, while I foresaw and loathed what so far is the result of the war, more government intrusion and another extended tour by our military in a damn dangerous place, I prefer our government there to Saddam's continuing and growing threat. The choice was simple: A) leave Saddam in and there are nukes built in Iraq, then fired at the U.S., in our lifetime, or B) take Saddam out and remove the possibility. I would hope that we'll continue, however, by taking a similar view of and approach to the additional terrorist threats presented by the leftist presence in Indonesia, Cuba and Venezuela--or at least consider putting the brakes on the chief source of income for terrorists, drugs, by legalizing them. And I agree 100% with Michelle Malkin's recommendations that, if we were REALLY at war:

"--A true state of "heightened alert" would mean barring any new religious visas for Muslim clerics and ending all visa-free travel, which means scrapping the anachronistic and insecure Transit Without a Visa program and the dangerously lax Visa Waiver Program.

-- A true state of "heightened alert" would mean a targeted visa moratorium for terror-sponsoring and terror-friendly nations. The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 placed such a ban on temporary visitor visas for individuals from the seven official state sponsors of terrorism. The list should be expanded and revisited if and when intelligence points to new al Qaeda breeding grounds. And yes, that means tourists from Egypt, Yemen, Syria and the Philippines might be denied a Grand Canyon vacation the next five years. Tough noogies.

-- A true state of "heightened alert" would mean killing off the idiotic Diversity Visa Lottery Program once and for all and scouring the H1-B visa program for Islamist exploitation.

-- A true state of "heightened alert" would mean unapologetic government monitoring of Arab and Muslim foreign students on temporary visas, Muslim chaplains and soldiers serving in the military and in prisons, and Arab and Muslim pilots and flight students.

-- A true state of "heightened alert" would mean immediate deportation of illegal aliens from terror-sponsoring and terror-supporting nations, increased National Guard dispatches on both the northern and southern borders, aggressive police-federal cooperation to catch illegal border crossers and overstayers on the interior, and vigorous encouragement of volunteer border security efforts like the Minuteman Project."

I wish that we as a country had formed a better idea of what we wanted to get out with after we'd gone in, and were prepared to back our military to the hilt to accomplish their task and make it home safely. It seems Congress isn't, and we as a country aren't, and that's in large part because the budget to prosecute the war is considered just another yearly expenditure instead of authorized by the declaration of war, as it should have been, so Rats can make it a political issue every year. God bless our soldiers, and God bless the U.S.A.

"The essence of war is violence;
moderation in war is imbecility!"
- First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher

However, let's not forget that all these people were ISLAMIST, but these are not representative of all of Islam. Islam isn't necessarily a religion of peace, but people generally are peaceful, and most Muslims are, too. The millions of Muslims that DON'T blow things up are just as human as Americans. Profiling is fine. Hating people merely because of the religion they hold is not, especially as the vast majority of these folks have never had any other option but to be Muslim, and certainly have never heard anything good about other religions. They are not at fault for their ignorance, and to a degree, deserve our pity.

"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something.
We are fighting to eliminate you."
- Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah

That I agree with Ann about Islamists does NOT mean I believe in religion entwined with the state. I barely believe in the state entwined with the state. It's difficult to imagine expanding government's reach into any area as private as religion, simply because if we advocate it, we'll end up with bland Christianity now, and it's likely that there will be unhappiness with that lack of zeal in many quarters. If it happens that there is division over the doctrine, one could win out. What if it's the Catholic church? What if it's the Mormon religion? What if it's [shudder] the Unitarians? I prefer the hell on earth that my child is witness to stay in Massachussetts, not be brought to their a classroom by someone whose version of God isn't my own.

"There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'"
- Barry Goldwater

While I agree with Barry that America neither needs to police a global Northern Ireland, nor get involved in another Masonic-Romanist struggle of its own, promoting religion should not be our objective in the Middle East and against Islamism. Screw moderation in war--we need our enemies dead. We don't need them put on reservations or given a goddamned Marshall plan. We don't need to Peace Corps them or fly them here for educational exchange or send them USAID grants. They won't love us regardless--WE NEED THEM DEAD. America has bought the lie that wars can be humane, with losers living and carrying on as normal folks, integrated into a happy global society. But losers do not just quit hating. That anger festers and will rise again. For example, I will never be happy about the South being kept in the Union, because I know it was not by the consent of my forefathers but by the force of a gun. Palestinians will never be happy about whatever settlement is forced on them by the U.S.--were I running Israel, the answer would be as simple as dealing death to them and weathering the fallout. When you run a war, to leave an Indian standing, or a Southern male living is to fail to grasp that those people will always hate you and pass on that hate. Killing them and sowing their land with salt is how wars are won for the long haul, not by making capitalists out of fascists or Christians out of Islamists, but by dealing death to those who oppose you.

"Western secularists cannot comprehend people who link their private faith to public actions. Too many think terrorists can be dissuaded from their bloody goals by using Western logic and trying to 'understand why they hate us.'I don't want to understand why they hate us, anymore than my father's generation sought to understand Nazis, or the ideological slaves of Hirohito. Like that generation, since the jihadists have declared war on us, I want to kill them before they kill me."
- Cal Thomas

        

Sec. 9. (I) The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

If the Confederate States were all about slavery, why would they include such a provision as that above in their Constitution? Wouldn't they want all the slaves they could get?

If your parents' consent on a contract is also binding on you, as Southerners' parents supposedly bound their children to the United States, then why are parents unable to put their kids into debt? Why can't parents borrow on their kids' future earnings? When these things happen today, we call them immoral and/or illegal. No one on this board is happy about Social Security, and everyone hates that we are binding kids to a future debt.

Yet everyone seems okay with the idea that once a state accepted the Constitution as law, it was and is irrevocably stuck. God forbid the WTO or UN ever use that logic on the U.S., if they force us to abrogate the few protections our Constitution grants us. How would we get them back? Contrary to the assertions in your PC history book, the states had and have the right to peaceably withdraw from a government obviously aimed at doing so without their consent, even if it was the super-duper-freedom-loving, United States, and even if the U.S. was fighting to end a system that included the involuntary servitude of a significant percentage of its population. The road to hell was paved with good intentions, and all you have to do to know I'm right is look at your Social Security taxes.

To you idiots who think the war was solely about slavery, ask yourself this:
1) If New Yorkers banned cars because they believed cars were evil polluters, and your car was stolen and driven to Canada through NY because Canada had the only car crushers on the continent, while New York's police and courts looked the other way--even after they had signed an agreement to protect the residents of other states' rights to own cars and return the cars to their owners if found in New York--would you be happy about it?
2) You give me, a security guard who lives next door, permission to camp out on your lawn because you're afraid of prowlers. That night, I see you doing something I think is evil (tying up your dog on the porch, in the freezing night air). The next day I tell you it'll cost you your dog if I stay another night, because I think your behavior is evil and cruel. You say no thanks, you'll keep your dog, and ask me to leave. Instead, I move onto the front porch of your house and point a gun at you as you walk in and out. Is that okay?

The obvious argument against both of these examples is of course that slaves were not cars or dogs--they were people. But lest we forget, they were also PROPERTY, paid for by Southerners, often bought from Northerners, and the slaves were property guaranteed in writing by the Constitution signed by the Northern states. Yet the North, so eager to claim the South had no right to nullify the Constitution, abrogated fugitive slave provisions of federal law and in the Constitution, letting property be stolen in intentional violation of law. Yes, the same Union states so for outright nullification of the Constitution where they were bound signatories, were 100% against it where the South wasn't bound at all and had seceded. The North, in a quest to right moral wrongs, disregarded the Constitution entirely to accommodate its own perceptions of morality. It wouldn't be the last time.

Today, we universally recognize that slavery is wrong. Slavery is evil. But then it was no less than Biblically sanctioned. Thousands of people depended upon it. Thousands owned slaves, and slaves were valuable property. The Northern plan was seemingly to end the slave states by attrition and encirclement, but likely would have accelerated into more rapid legislation of the end of slavery, as free states were admitted into the Union over Southern objections and an abolitionist, sectionalist Congress voted to end the peculiar institution, Constitutional guarantees otherwise be damned. Since the South depended on slaves to sustain its agrarian economy, a rapid end to slavery by such legislation would have resulted in both ruin for the South and the end to due process of law for deprivation of property, as there was simply no way the North could ever compensate the South for the economic damage which the end of slavery would wreak on the region. Imagine what havoc the sudden repossession of every car in the Northeast would cause. Economically, the costs in the South would have been the same or worse.

Most telling, the evil that is slavery does not suddenly make the Northern states right in stealing or abetting the stealing of property, and it does not suddenly absolve the North from announcing boldly that the same Constitution it ignored in one written section was binding on the South according to an imaginary no-secession clause, and the South could thus not secede. An incredible wrong, binding men to serve a master, cannot be corrected by another incredible wrong, binding free men to associate against their wishes. One might as well force people to love one another (which we'll discuss in a moment). That the North won does not mean that it was right in fighting the battle in the first place. If the government decides to burn every Bible, it might be able to do it, but that won't make it right. Just so with the Lost Cause.

"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination--that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."
- H.L. Mencken

I'm a fan of the original intent of the folks who fought and died for the U.S.--LIBERTY--and prefer the Articles of Confederation to the bastardized creation of federalists who couldn't and can't stand the true freedom of the unfettered population of the Western territories. While I'm no friend of Armand Hammer, he posited that we should buy Siberia and there usher in the same freedoms Westerners had, this time in Asia. Of course he meant the same freedoms that the socialist U.S. "grants" its citizens now, as opposed to the freedoms God intends for all mankind, but homesteading that grand wilderness would be a great place to start over. The damnYankees that led America to where it is today are the leaders in restricting freedom, perhaps most successfully and appropriately, their own.

"New York - that unnatural city where every one is an exile, none more so than the American."
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Maybe the capstone on the mausoleum of this free country took place when the Congress in 1964 determined that the American people could not use their property as they saw fit, nor could the states. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, in its extension to the States of federal rights, ended the grand experiment in which states were allowed differences in operation under law, and ushered in both unitary government and an end to freedom of association, as well as beginning an era in which the biggest victim had the most status in front of the law--essentially meaning that there existed no longer equal justice before law. Today, we have no states, just what bones the federal courts leave them to handle. We must hire and fire and serve and associate with others regardless of personal wishes, for the government tells us we must. And ground down by the threat of lawsuit, we must simply acquiesce to accusations of bias or prejudice, because equality of result was the goal all along, never equality of opportunity.

"[T]he process that gave us the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Roe vs. Wade was the same: the centralization of law, removing much law from the purvey of the states – where the U.S. Constitution of 1787 had put such matters – and transferring that power to the central government. For all of the accusations of racism against them, people like Barry Goldwater (and even Strom Thurmond) did not oppose the Civil Rights Act out of racial motives (both men were considered to be moderate to liberal on social issues of race) but rather because it was an attempt to use the Constitution’s Commerce Clause in an unconstitutional manner. (I am not saying that all opponents of this act were racial liberals who opposed the act out of legal principle, but rather that it was possible to believe without racial animus that such policies constitutionally were up to the states, not the federal government."
- William L. Anderson

I look forward to seeing the human race move to a new era without guiding documents to be shredded by the politicians, but an ethos, one that says all humans should help each other but are beholden to no one. John's Wayne's is pretty good:

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I expect the same from them."
- Wayne as John Bernard Books (The Shootist)

I prefer other documents, and I would amend it severely were I king for a day. But however the Constitution may be flawed, it's a whole lot better than what we have now. (based on a tagline by Freeper festus)

"Governor, had I foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no, sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand."
- General Robert E. Lee to Governor Stockdale of Texas,
August 1870

I want immigration. But not to the extent that we have an America that no longer believes in its legal system, and abuses it, because its citizens have little experience with justice under law. Not to the extent that America becomes a tossed salad instead of melting pot--America has more to give to an immigrant than any immigrant or group of immigrants could bring to her. No, immigration needs to be halted until the border is secure and the illegals who are here are rooted out, and not by passing more intrusive laws. By simple enforcement of the current law alone, the U.S. could stop employers from illegally hiring 'undocumented immigrants,' i.e., criminals, and end the screwing of the American taxpayer and wage-earner.

"If there were not a perennial supply of cheap labor, wages would rise, and would draw back workers to now despised seasonal jobs; something is terribly wrong when central California counties experience 15 percent unemployment and yet insist that without thousands of illegal aliens from Oaxaca crops won't be picked and houses not built. At some point, some genius is going to make the connection that illegal immigration may actually explain high unemployment by ensuring employers cheap labor that will not organize, can be paid in cash, and often requires little government deductions and expense."
- Victor Davis Hanson

The first thing wrong with our country, in need of fixing TODAY, before all other concerns, is establishing control of our borders. Ronald Reagan said that “A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation,” and that "[on this shining city on a hill] there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.” He and I agree. We should have an open door policy to anyone who gets here and is American at heart. But right now, there are no doors, no walls, and the city on a hill is being looted. Until the borders are secure, there is no Constitutional government, because the U.S. is taking our tax dollars and not doing its first job under the Constitution: providing for a common defense. I do not want the photo above to happen in reality, any more than I want to happen symbolically.

"American institutions rest solely on good citizenship. They were created by people who had a background of self-government. New arrivals should be limited to our capacity to absorb them into the ranks of good citizenship. America must be kept American. For this purpose, it is necessary to continue a policy of restricted immigration. It would lie well to make such immigration of a selective nature with some inspection at the source, and based either on a prior census or upon the record of naturalization. Either method would insure the admission of those with the largest capacity and best intention of becoming citizens. I am convinced that our present economic and social conditions warrant a limitation of those to be admitted. We should find additional safety in a law requiring the immediate registration of all aliens. Those who do not want to be partakers of the American spirit ought not to settle in America."
- Calvin Coolidge

Famishus; Yoe; Yaelle; usmcobra; DainBramage; writer33; Dysart; tnlibertarian; Squantos; speedy; SlowBoat407; Robert A. Cook, PE; Rennes Templar; pax_et_bonum; Oberon; Mr. Burns; MortMan; Moog; Monkey Face; Lokibob; LibertarianInExile; JoeSixPack1; Joe 6-pack; ironmaidenPR2717; hispanarepublicana; GSWarrior; GreenHornet; Grammy; Goodgirlinred; GadareneDemoniac; Dog Gone; didi; DeadCorpse; Chena; Blurblogger; aroostook war;

Henry Erskine, Lord Advocate of Scotland and poet, when asked if the pun is the lowest form of wit, replied, "It is, and therefore the foundation of all wit." If you enjoy (suffer mightily from) a good (bad) pun, let me know, and I'll add you to the list so you can enjoy more (encourage your masochistic tendencies). As Doug Larson said, "A pun is the lowest form of humor, unless you thought of it yourself."

For purposes of pun appreciation, according to Spider Robinson, methods and relative level of applause to a punster include: 1) The Groan; 2) The Holding of the Nose; 3) Holding the nose and fleeing screaming into the night (HTNAFSITN, on the net, which WAS the prior acme of pun acknowledgement).

Spider chose as the highest form of compliment on a pun actually ignoring it, and generally complimenting the PRIOR punner. This sort of applause is reserved for those puns that are of such high order of wordplay that the average reader not only gets it, he could take it back to the store if he had a receipt.

Part I: Commitments on Pending Judicial Nominations
A. Votes for Certain Nominees. We will vote to invoke cloture on the following judicial nominees: Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Circuit), William Pryor (11th Circuit), and Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit).

That’s right—"Votes for Certain Nominees" is bolded. Because Brown and Owen were going to make it through all along. Pryor was, too, after the filibuster was killed. This killed the filibuster rules change for SCOTUS, which was what making sure Owens or Brown were the first nominees was all about. THAT is what is wrong with this deal--not so much that it's only getting three nominees through, but preventing the likelihood that we will be able to appoint a known, visibly conservative justice to the U.S. Supreme Court instead of a Souter. Brown and Owens were great p.r. for the filibuster. White males will not make it through the MSM smearing.

B. Status of Other Nominees. Signatories make no commitment to vote for or against cloture on the following judicial nominees: William Myers (9th Circuit) and Henry Saad (6th Circuit).

READ: As RINO sellouts, we commit to avoiding the overt appearance of pro-white racism (which we will be called anyway for being Republicans), demonstrating that we're anti-white racists, and voting for closure on blacks and women and a token conservative to sweeten the deal—but no more white guy nominations—the rest will all fall under the “extraordinary circumstances” exception, of course!

Part II: Commitments for Future Nominations
A. Future Nominations. Signatories will exercise their responsibilities under the Advice and Consent Clause of the United States Constitution in good faith. Nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist.
B. Rules Changes. In light of the spirit and continuing commitments made in this agreement, we commit to oppose the rules changes in the 109th Congress, which we understand to be any amendment to or interpretation of the Rules of the Senate that would force a vote on a judicial nomination by means other than unanimous consent or Rule XXII.

So the Rats just exercise their responsibilities in ‘good faith,’ and only filibuster under ‘extraordinary circumstances.’ You can always trust a Rat to do things in good faith, like Teddy Kennedy on the education bill. There is a certain segment of the populace that CAN be fooled all of the time, as the old saying goes.

As much as I'd like to think this was JUST the Seven Dwarves selling us out, as freeper sirthomasthemore pointed out, "With Frists’ speech, we now know the real culprit was the Senate as a whole. It basically appointed a committee of 14. While the rest of the Senators entertained and kept their bases preoccupied on CSPAN, the committee was at work finding a negotiated settlement. Have you heard ONE GOP senator, call for retribution against the Rino’s? Have you heard GWB scream out in righteous indignation? No, and we never will."

"     You can always ease tensions and avoid confrontations by surrendering. You can always postpone a showdown, even when that simply lets the problem fester and grow worse.
     Some Republicans may take comfort from the fact that they still have the option of changing the Senate rules in the future if the Democrats violate the spirit of their deal. But, once you have had the votes to win and wimped out instead, there is little reason to think that the weak sisters and opportunists on your side will be with you the next time high noon rolls around.
     While members of both parties are trying to put a good face on this political deal and the media have gushed about this "bipartisan" agreement, Republican Senator Charles Grassley was one of the few who called a spade a spade, when he characterized what happened as "unilateral disarmament" by the Republicans.
     If it was just the Republican Party that lost in this confrontation, that would be a minor partisan matter. What is of major importance is that the American people lost a golden opportunity that may not come again in this generation."
- Thomas Sowell

"Some incorrigibly naive conservatives say Democrats won't be able to get away with blocking "conservative" judges in the future, having agreed not to block Brown, Pryor and Owen, who everyone agrees are originalists and "conservatives." But Democrats can simply say that by agreeing not to block a vote on these three, they weren't conceding the nominees weren't "extraordinary," but that they were an acceptable, short-term compromise in exchange for the right to block similarly conservative nominees in the future...Republicans have also bestowed upon Democrats a public relations victory by implying that it was the Republicans, not Democrats, who were breaking with historical precedent and violating the spirit of the Constitution. In short, Republicans had the moral and historical high ground and voluntarily surrendered it to a militant Democrat minority by tacitly agreeing to a false version of the facts and history."

- David Limbaugh

"Never has a majority party proved to be so spineless. Republicans, lest we forget, constitute 55 out of 100 senators and have the power to do what they please. Instead, they capitulated. It is now crystal clear that unless Republicans own almost 60 seats, rules will not be changed; unless Republicans own almost 70, cloture will never be invoked on a major issue. If that doesn't discourage the Republican base, nothing will."

- Ben Shapiro

"One may argue that a compromise is durable to the extent its signers make genuine sacrifices. In this compromise, conservatives and moderates have sacrificed resorting to the constitutional option that would confirm judicial nominees by a simple majority. The left has sacrificed three nominees it would have lost anyway, while thwarting two and retaining the right to apply a Senate rule of a required supermajority (60 percent to break a filibuster) not only to all other district and appellate nominees, but to nominees to the big enchilada - the Supreme Court."

- Ross Mackenzie

"It is not a great deal for two nominees who have been accorded a nice wake having been thrown overboard at sea. (And) everyone should also clearly see that ultimately, nothing has been settled when a vacancy arises on the U.S. Supreme Court."

- George Allen

"Bill Frist, who should have got over queasiness at the sight of blood a long time ago, showed up the next day still as white as John Brown's ghost and tried to spin defeat as victory. He was joined in his pitiful enterprise by the White House, putting out a brave message that nobody believes, winning hoots and hollers from everybody. The sly, smug smile on Nancy Pelosi's face in the photograph on Page One said it all: The pussycat who swallowed the canary, feet, beak, squeak, feathers, fuss and all. Outnumbered and all but unarmed, the Democrats continue to work their intimidating mastery over Republicans mired, probably permanently, in the minority-party mind-set.

The seven senators who went over the hill at the sound of the guns woke up at dawn the next morning, impatient as 6-year-olds on Christmas morning, expecting to see their profiles on the Style section front of The Washington Post: John McCain, firing up "the Doubletalk Express," his presidential campaign bus; John Warner, charming little old ladies who imagine him to be the courtly, harmless old Virginia ham of Victorian caricature, and young Master Lindsey Graham, eager to tutor George W. Bush on Social Security reform and dreaming of beating out Chuck Hagel as John McCain Lite.

- Wesley Pruden

"If the "maverick" Republicans had a slogan, it would be: "Always surrender from a position of strength...Chuck Schumer could be the last Democrat in the Senate and the new rule would be: Unanimous votes required for all Senate business. But at least we could count on Sens. Lindsey Graham, Mike DeWine, John McCain, John Warner, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Lincoln Chafee to strike a deal forcing Schumer to agree not to block the 99 other senators except in "extraordinary circumstances."

- Ann Coulter

Maybe the best rejoinder to anyone who thinks these Senators were in it for anything but themselves.

"In any compromise between Good and Evil, it is only Evil that can profit."
- Ayn Rand

Tellin' a guy he's a Commie because he's not backing your play does you no good. C'mon, you're better than that. You could have brought out your point logically in a way that convinced him, instead of telling the guy to ship off to Red Korea.

Too often on this board a head-to-head like that turns into a "whose conservative 'credentials' are bigger" flamewar. It'd be a whole lot easier if we'd realize that the trolls here are few and far between and easily spotted, and the GOP has to be a big tent, at the very least to get our judicial nominees through.

Listen to the libertarian talking about moderation. Sheesh.

"An enemy will agree, but a friend will argue."
- Russian Proverb

I don't automatically agree with everything Bush says, but that doesn't make me a liberal or communist. Bush always struck me as someone who could agree to disagree with people here, unlike a strong component of this board who finds Bush's opinions the only ones which should be spoken here.

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."
- Oscar Wilde

But I roll over for no one in a flame war. I can type as long as you can, I promise.

"You punch me, I punch back. I do not believe it's good for ones self-respect to be a punching bag."
- Victor Hugo

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."
- Groucho Marx

Henry Louis Mencken was born on September 12,1880, of German-American stock. His paternal grandfather had settled, as a cigar maker, in the German section of Baltimore in 1848, and his father eventually started his own tobacco firm, which did a comfortable business and provided a comfortable income. When Henry, the eldest of three boys and a girl, was three, the family moved to 1524 Hollins Street, a neighborhood which in the eighties was still almost rural. Mencken continued to live there all his life in spite of allurements to move to New York, which he termed "a third-rate Babylon," preferring to remain in and of "the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay." As a boy, Mencken attended F. Knapp's Institute, and later the Polytechnic. Mencken's own story of his life, up to his twelfth year, in Happy Days is a delightful account of bourgeois boyhood and Baltimore in the 1880's.

By precedent destined for the tobacco business, by temperament Mencken was destined for the business of ideas. He had "blooded" his first book in 1888. His next experience with print, Huckleberry Finn, he called "probably the most stupendous event of my whole life" and adds that "thus launched upon the career of a bookworm, I presently began to reach out right and left for more fodder. When the Enoch Pratt Free Library opened a branch in Hollins Street... I was still a shade too young to be excited, but I had a card before I was nine... I began to inhabit a world that was two-thirds letterpress and only one-third trees, fields, streets and people." During his high school days Mencken claimed to be "one of the most assiduous customers that the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore has had in its whole history."

Christmas, 1888, introduced Mencken to a boy's press and gave him his first smell of printer's ink at the tender age of eight. It was this gift that gave birth to the famous signature, H. L. Mencken. In the process of learning to use the set all the lower case r's were smashed and Mencken was forced to reduce his first name to H. He states that "other presents came and went, but there was never another that fetched and floored me like Dorman's Baltimore No. 10 Self-Inker Printing Press."

And so it was beautiful letters, not pungent cigars, that marked and made his life. After leaving school, Mencken went dutifully to work for his father; but he was scribbling in private, and on the Monday following his father's death, January 13,1899, he presented himself in the city room of the old Baltimore Morning Herald. After turning up every night for a month he was sent off to cover a rural suburb. From that night, Mencken was a newspaperman.

In his Newspaper Days, Mencken writes, "a newspaper reporter, in those remote days, had a grand and gaudy time of it... it was the maddest, gladdest, damnedest existence ever enjoyed by mortal youth." He abandoned books for life itself, "at large in a wicked seaport of half a million people, with a front seat at every public show, as free of the night as of the day, and getting earfuls and eyefuls of instruction in a hundred giddy arcana."

Mencken gained a reputation in the trade as a boy wonder, for he was industrious and fertile and learned all there was to learn about a newspaper in a few years. He advanced with alarming rapidity, becoming city editor and two years later managing editor of the Herald. In 1906 when the Herald ceased to exist, Mencken went to the Sunpapers as Sunday editor, became an editorial writer, and in 1911 started his column, the Free Lance, in the Evening Sun. He began another series of weekly articles in 1919 and was associated with the Sunpapers, except for one short break, until 1948.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...
I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...
I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
I believe in the reality of progress.
I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

At sixty-two Mencken had spent forty-three years as a newspaperman, forty as a writer of books, twenty-five as a reviewer, and twenty as a magazine editor. "I edited both newspapers and magazines, some of them successes and some of them not, and got a close, confidential view of the manner in which opinion is formulated and merchanted on this earth... Like any other man I have had my disasters and my miseries, and like any other author I have suffered from recurrent depressions and despairs, but taking one year with another I have had a fine time of it in this vale of sorrow, and no call to envy any man. "

Mencken suffered a cerebral thrombosis in 1948, from which he never fully recovered, and died on January 29, 1956

"Mencken’s pungent, iconoclastic criticism and scathing invective, although aimed at all smugly complacent attitudes, was chiefly directed at what he saw as the ignorant, self-righteous, and overly credulous American middle class, members of which he dubbed Boobus americanus. Mencken also fought against the strain of Puritanism in American literature and was an important literary champion of such writers as Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, and Eugene O’Neill. His keen interest in and intelligent appraisal of 20th-century American letters are evident in the posthumously collected essays of H. L. Mencken on American Literature (2002)." - from The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition

"Journalist, muckraker, political gadfly, atheist, and conservative dissident, H.L. Mencken "was to the first part of the twentieth century what Mark Twain was to the last part of the nineteenth--the quintessential voice of American letters." - Terry Teachout

That alcohol in dilute aqueous solution, when taken into the human organism, acts as a depressant, not a stimulant, is now so much a commonplace of knowledge that even the more advanced varieties of physiologists are beginning to be aware of it. The intelligent layman no longer resorts to the jug when he has important business before him, whether intellectual or manual; he resorts to it after his business is done, and he desires to release his taut nerves and reduce the steam-pressure in his spleen. Alcohol, so to speak, unwinds us. It raises the threshold of sensation and makes us less sensitive to external stimuli, and particularly to those that are unpleasant. Putting a brake upon all the qualities which enable us to get on in the world and shine before our fellows - for example, combativeness, shrewdness, diligence, ambition-, it releases the qualities which mellow us and make our fellows love us - for example, amiability, generosity, toleration, humor, sympathy. A man who has taken aboard two or three cocktails is less competent than he was before to steer a battleship down the Ambrose Channel, or to cut off a leg, or to draw up a deed of trust, or to conduct Bach's B minor mass, but he is immensely more competent to entertain a dinner party, to admire a pretty girl, or to hear Bach's B minor mass. The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind. Pithecanthropus erectus was a teetotaler, but the angels, you may be sure, know what is proper at 5 p.m.

All this is so obvious that I marvel that no utopian has ever proposed to abolish all the sorrows of the world by the simple device of getting and keeping the whole human race gently stewed. I do not say drunk, remember; I say simply gently stewed - and apologize, as in duty bound, for not knowing how to describe the state in a more seemly phrase. The man who is in it is a man who has put all of his best qualities into his showcase. He is not only immensely more amiable than the cold sober man; he is immeasurably more decent. He reacts to all situations in an expansive, generous and humane manner. He has become more liberal, more tolerant, more kind. He is a better citizen, husband, father, friend. The enterprises that make human life on this earth uncomfortable and unsafe are never launched by such men. They are not makers of wars; they do not rob and oppress anyone. All the great villainies of history have been perpetrated by sober men, and chiefly by teetotalers. But all the charming and beautiful things, from the Song of Songs to terrapin à la Maryland, and from the nine Beethoven symphonies to the Martini cocktail, have been given to humanity by men who, when the hour came, turned from well water to something with color to it, and more in it than mere oxygen and hydrogen.

I am well aware, of course, that getting the whole human race stewed and keeping it stewed, year in and year out, would present formidable technical difficulties. It would be hard to make the daily dose of each individual conform exactly to his private needs, and hard to get it to him at precisely the right time. On the one hand there would be the constant danger that large minorities might occasionally become cold sober, and so start wars, theological disputes, moral reforms, and other such unpleasantnesses. On the other hand, there would be danger that other minorities might proceed to actual intoxication, and so annoy us all with their fatuous bawling or maudlin tears. But such technical obstacles, of course, are by no means insurmountable. Perhaps they might be got around by abandoning the administration of alcohol per ora and distributing it instead by impregnating the air with it. I throw out the suggestion, and pass on. Such questions are for men skilled in therapeutics, government and business efficiency. They exist today and their enterprises often show a high ingenuity, but, being chiefly sober, they devote too much of their time to harassing the rest of us. Half-stewed, they would be ten times as genial, and perhaps at least half as efficient. Thousands of them, relieved of their present anti-social duties, would be idle, and eager for occupation. I trust to them in this small matter. If they didn't succeed completely, they would at least succeed partially.

The objection remains that even small doses of alcohol, if each followed upon the heels of its predecessor before the effects of the latter had worn off, would have a deleterious effect upon the physical health of the race - that the death-rate would increase, and whole categories of human beings would be exterminated. The answer here is that what I propose is not lengthening the span of life, but augmenting its joys. Suppose we assume that its duration is reduced by 20%. My reply is that its delights will be increased at least 100%. Misled by statisticians, we fall only too often into the error of worshiping mere figures. To say that A will live to be eighty and B will die at forty is certainly not to argue plausibly that A is more to be envied than B. A, in point of fact, may have to spend all of his eighty years in Kansas or Arkansas, with nothing to eat save corn and hog-meat and nothing to drink save polluted river water, whereas B may put in his twenty years of discretion upon the Côte d'Azur, wie Gott Im Frankreich. It is my contention that the world I picture, assuming the average duration of human life to be cut down even 50%, would be an infinitely happier and more charming world than that we live in today - that no intelligent human being, having once tasted its peace and joy, would go back voluntarily to the harsh brutalities and stupidities that we now suffer, and idiotically strive top prolong. If intelligent Americans, in these depressing days, still cling to life and try to stretch it out longer and longer, it is surely not logically, but only instinctively. It is the primeval brute in them that hangs on, not the man. The man knows only too well that ten years in a genuine civilized and happy country would be infinitely better than a geological epoch under the curses he must now face and endure every day.

Moreover, there is no need to admit that the moderate alcoholization of the whole race would materially reduce the duration of life. A great many of us are moderately alcoholized already, and yet manage to survive quite as long as the blue-noses. As for the blue-noses themselves, who would repine if breathing alcohol-laden air brought them down with delirium tremens and so sterilized and exterminated them? The advantage to the race in general would be obvious and incalculable. All the worst strains - which now not only persist, but even prosper - would be stamped out in a few generations, and so the average human being would move appreciably away from, say, the norm of a Baptist clergyman in Georgia and toward the norm of Shakespeare, Mozart and Goethe. It would take æons, of course, to go all the way, but there would be a progress with every generation, slow but sure. Today, it must be manifest, we make no progress at all; instead we slip steadily backward. That the average civilized man of today is inferior to the average civilized man of two or three generations ago is too plain to need arguing. He has less enterprise and courage; he is less resourceful and various; he is more like a rabbit and less like a lion. Harsh oppressions have made him what he is. He is the victim of tyrants. Well, no man with two or three cocktails in him is a tyrant. He may be foolish, but he is not cruel. He may be noisy, but he is also tolerant, generous and kind. My proposal would restore Christianity to the world. It would rescue mankind from moralists, pedants and brutes.

Formerly a preacher, Sam Kinison became one of the the loudest and rudest comedians of the 20th century. For some, his name conjures up images of a hard-partying, hard-drinking wild thing. His views on religion, women, and world hunger managed to put him on the shock comedy map. However, the fact is this demon from hell was an angel in disguise.

"Jesus had a tough life. I read about that guy. Jesus is the only guy that ever came back from the dead that didn't scare the fuck out of everybody! "
- Sam Kinison

Born on December 8th, 1953 in Yakima, Washington, Sam Kinison's beginnings were fairly innocent. His father was a Pentacostal preacher, and the family lived in a church in Peoria, Illinois. Sam and his brothers followed in their father's footsteps by touring churches across the Bible Belt and earning a decent living. But that wasn't enough for Sam. As his preachings became increasingly too much for the average churchgoer, he took his thoughts and ideas to comedy clubs.

"I'm like anyone else on this planet -- I'm very moved by world hunger. I see the same commercials, with those little kids, starving, and very depressed. I watch those kids and I go, 'Fuck, I know the FILM crew could give this kid a sandwich!' There's a director five feet away going, 'DON'T FEED HIM YET! GET THAT SANDWICH OUTTA HERE! IT DOESN'T WORK UNLESS HE LOOKS HUNGRY!!!' But I'm not trying to make fun of world hunger. Matter of fact, I think I have the answer. You want to stop world hunger? Stop sending these people food. Don't send these people another bite, folks. You want to send them something, you want to help? Send them U-Hauls. Send them U-Hauls, some luggage, send them a guy out there who says, 'Hey, we been driving out here every day with your food, for, like, the last thirty or forty years, and we were driving out here today across the desert, and it occurred to us that there wouldn't BE world hunger, if you people would LIVE WHERE THE FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT'S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT'S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! GET YOUR STUFF, GET YOUR SHIT, WE'LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE'LL TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA -- WE JUST DON'T LIVE IN THEM, ASSHOLES!" "
- Sam Kinison

Sam Kinison became one of the great stand-up comedians of the 1980's. His life became the classic image of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Sam's shows sold out like arena rock concerts. Hard-drinking and hard-partying became a major part of his act. After realizing that drink and drugs were killing him, he decided to clean up his life.

"It all goes back to Jesus... he's got to be up in heaven freaking out at all the interpretations of the things they SAY he said. He didn't even KNOW he was the son of God. As soon as he was born, as soon as he could speak the language, his mother said, 'You're the son of God. When you were born the angels came, and the stars stood in one place, the wise men brought gifts, and the whole world's been waiting for you to come and do great things.' [As baby Jesus] 'Really? Me? Are you sure?' [Back to normal voice] Everybody but Joseph. Joseph's walking around going, [very suspicious] 'Yeah, you had better be the son of God, I'll tell you that. You had BETTER be him, little mister. And you better be the ONLY son of God.'"
- Sam Kinison

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against. Then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Ch. III, "White Blackmail"

1) Any law the electorate sees as being open to being perverted from its original intent will be perverted in a manner that exceeds the manner of perversion seen at the time.
2) Any law that is so difficult to pass it requires the citizens be assured it will not be a stepping stone to worse laws will in fact be a stepping stone to worse laws.
3) Any law that requires the citizens be assured the law does not mean what the citizens fear, means exactly what the citizens fear.
4) Any law passed in a good cause will be interpreted to apply to causes against the wishes of the people.
5) Any law enacted to help any one group will be applied to harm people not in that group.
6) Everything the government says will never happen will happen.
7) What the government says it could not foresee, the government has planned for.
8) When there is a budget shortfall to cover non-essential government services the citizens will be given the choice between higher taxes or the loss of essential government services.
9) Should the citizens mount a successful effort to stop a piece of legislation the same legislation will be passed under a different name.
10) All deprivations of freedom and choice will be increased rather than reversed.
11) Any government that has to build safeguards into a law so that it will not be abused is providing guidelines for abusing the law without violating it.

*I recently discovered that Matt Giwer claims this as his own work. It may well be. Giwer is a Holocaust-revising POS. There are certainly others of the same ilk I've quoted here. That doesn't make the words less worthy of consideration, or attribution, contrary to what is the likely reaction to hearing that Matt Giwer is a Holocaust-revising POS. But I would not read much else Giwer has to say without bearing that in mind. And I'm not a fan of every person quoted here--I just find the words worth considering, even if for their place in time or their speaker alone.

"We no longer find slavery abhorrent. We embrace it. We demand more. Big government is not just the opiate of the masses. It is the opiate. The drug of choice for multinational corporations and single moms; for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers and militant senior citizens."
- Janice Rogers Brown

Janice Rogers Brown is currently an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, where she has served since 1996. She is the first African-American woman to sit on California's highest court.

Brown was born in Alabama in 1949 and grew up amidst the tumult of the civil rights movement. After moving with her family to California while she was a teenager, Brown attended California State University in Sacramento and then enrolled in law school at UCLA.

"Government is the only enterprise in the world which expands in size when its failures increase."
- Janice Rogers Brown

After law school, Brown worked for two years (1977-1979) for California's Office of Legislative Counsel. She followed with an eight-year stint in the California Attorney General's Office, after which Governor George Deukmejian appointed her Deputy Secretary of the Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency. In 1991, Governor Pete Wilson appointed Brown to be his legal affairs secretary.

Brown's judicial experience began with her nomination by Wilson in 1994 to California's Third District Court of Appeals. In 1996, Wilson nominated Brown to the California Supreme Court. Brown's nomination to the California Supreme Court met with opposition from the State Bar of California's Commission on Judicial Nominees, which rated her "not qualified" due to her limited judicial experience and her tendency to express "gratuitous" political and philosophical views in her opinions. This was the second time Brown had been rated "not qualified" by the Commission: the previous "not qualified" rating in 1993 cost Brown her first chance on the state's highest court. However, Wilson ferociously defended Brown's qualifications, and she was soon confirmed.

Since ascending to the bench, Brown has become known both for her conservative views and her stinging dissents.

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
- Janice Rogers Brown

Here's a closer look at some of the crap spewed about JRB:

"Among her previous decisions, Brown authored an opinion that effectively ended affirmative action in California. In {Hi-Voltage Wire Works Inc. v. City of San Jose}, she suggested race-consciousness in affirmative action was similar to segregationist practices. Even Brown's Republican colleagues on the California Supreme Court called her analysis of precedent in this area 'a serious distortion of history.'"

---Bushwa. Justice Werdegar said, more precisely:

"Finally, in my view, the general theme that runs throughout the majority opinion's historical discussion-that there is no meaningful distinction between discriminatory racial policies that were imposed for the clear purpose of establishing and preserving racial segregation, on the one hand, and race-conscious affirmative action programs whose aim is to break down or eliminate the continuing effects of such segregation and discrimination, on the other-represents a serious distortion of history and does a grave disservice to the sincerely held views of a significant segment of our populace. As is demonstrated by the numerous and lengthy past judicial decisions that have considered raceand gender-conscious affirmative action programs, the legal questions posed by such programs have been widely understood as difficult and close, but the majority opinion's presentation does not do justice to the legal and historical arguments that have been articulated on both sides of the issue. In this respect, as well, I believe the majority opinion's approach cannot help but detract from the persuasiveness and credibility of its ultimate ruling."

She was critiquing her STYLE, not the substance. She AGREED with her ruling! And WTF does Werdegar know about style, anyway? She's ruled that you don't have a 1st Amendment right to refuse to rent an apartment to an unmarried couple because of your religious beliefs, and that a city could extort thousands of dollars from a property owner to pay for “loss of benefits to community” when the property owner applied for a zone change to convert a failed private tennis court to residential housing.

No, Hi-Voltage is masterful in that it clearly suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court took a wrong turn when it began approving preferential policies. Brown believes that race/gender-blindness requires each applicant be judged on his or her merits, regardless of race or sex composition in the individual's city or the workforce. Proposition 209, according to Brown, means a compelling state interest and narrow tailoring are STILL insufficient to justify preferential programs--she construes the Weber line as creating exceptions to the federal government's general mandate of equal protection--(and here comes the masterful part) then uses the Weber line an example of how the federal government has LOWERED the constitutional rights of its citizens to equal protection.

JRB: "The fact that as currently interpreted Title VII and title VI allow outreach of the type the City requires misses the mark for the same reason. Rather than incorporate the judicial gloss of Weber and its progeny, the voters intended to remove it. "Let's ... return[] to the fundamentals of our democracy: individual achievement, equal opportunity and zero tolerance for discrimination against-or for-any individual." (Ballot Pamp., supra, argument in favor of Prop. 209, p. 32.) As originally implemented, "Title VII tolerate[d] no racial discrimination, subtle or otherwise." (McDonnell Douglas, supra, 411 U.S. at p. 801 [93 S.Ct. at p. 1824].) It was applied to "remove barriers that have operated ... to favor an identifiable group ... over other employees." (Griggs, supra, 401 U.S. at pp. 429-430 [91 S.Ct. at p. 853].) With the approval of Proposition 209, the electorate chose to reassert the principle of equality of individual opportunity as a constitutional imperative."

I'm gonna crib some from Steve Wu at SCOTUSBlog (and I'll note it when I do), who wrote about some of this stuff, and better than I could:

Discrimination in jury selection: Brown overturned a California ruling that said prosecutors violated the Constitution by striking African-American women from juries on the basis of race ({People v. Robert Young}).

Bushwa. In that case, the MURDERER appealing his sentence in this case was trying to get off claiming three black women were dismissed from the jury because of racism or some class they were part of--though black men WERE on the jury--and JRB wrote:

"The problem of an endless proliferation of cognizable groups is exacerbated by the possibility of cross-categories--that is, the subgroups that are constructed from the intersection of two or more cognizable groups. If we recognize cross-categories as distinct cognizable groups, then the number of cognizable groups expands geometrically: two cognizable groups give rise to four possible subgroups, three cognizable groups give rise to eight possible subgroups, four groups give rise to 16, etc. Logic, as well as the unusual prophylactic remedy that Wheeler and Batson created, dictates that, for a cross-category to constitute a separate cognizable group, there must be some indication that the two categories operate in conjunction, generating a distinct synergy of prejudice or group bias. With that point in mind, the issue in Motton and in this case becomes clear. Before we can find that Black women are a cognizable group, we have to find that, in a sufficient number of cases to justify a Batson /Wheeler remedy, gender is not the basis of group discrimination, nor is ethnicity that basis, but rather "ethno-gender"--the conjunction of a person's gender and ethnicity--is the basis of group discrimination. In other words, we have to find that, from the perspective of jury selection, being a Black woman is significantly different from being Black and being a woman. Moreover, we have to make that finding in an evidentiary vacuum; declaring it to be so without the benefit of hearings, formal studies, expert testimony, or even anecdotal evidence...I would not reject, as a matter of law, the possibility that Black women might be the victims of a unique type of group discrimination justifying their designation as a cognizable group, but I see no evidentiary basis in Motton for us to have made a judicial finding to that effect, binding in all jury selection proceedings, and I see no such evidentiary basis in this case either.
     The invidious effect of our holding in Motton is that the law now memorializes a pernicious stereotype it is trying to combat, and it does so without anyone even establishing, as a factual matter, that the stereotype preexisted our holding. In this way, we created the stereotype, pretending to destroy it. Here, of course, we can avoid the issue by finding no purposeful discrimination, but the wisdom and continuing validity of our holding in Motton remain unresolved."

* Age discrimination: Brown ruled that this form of discrimination as not harmful. ''Discrimination based on age ... does not mark its victim with a stigma of inferiority and second-class citizenship: it is the unavoidable consequence of that universal leveler, time,'' said Brown in {Stevenson v. Superior}.

Bushwa. More from JRB that explains this is NOT about her 'ruling age discrimination is not as harmful,' but about her ruling that administrative settlements are not supposed to be made in the courts but in administrative forums:

"To deny plaintiff a FEHA-based Tameny claim is not to condone or countenance discrimination in employment because of age or on any other invidious basis. On the contrary, it recognizes that the Legislature has vigorously defended the public policy underlying FEHA and provided comprehensive remedies to redress and rectify violations. The only question before us is whether any other considerations justify the court in displacing these legislative efforts."

Oh, and by the way, she was voting to UPHOLD the evidently 'age-ist' California Court of Appeal ruling below.

* Housing discrimination: Brown was the only member of the California Supreme Court to rule that a female African-American police officer could not recover damages for housing discrimination. In that case, a White property owner accused the police officer of trying to break in when she was, in fact, merely inquiring about an apartment vacancy ({Kronig v. Fiar}).

Bushwa. JRB: "...the majority and the Commission rely substantially, if not exclusively, on CFTC, supra, 478 U.S. 833, 106 S.Ct. 3245, 92 L.Ed.2d 675, in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the authority of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to adjudicate a state law counterclaim in a reparation proceeding based on the parties' consent to the agency's assumption of jurisdiction. (See maj. opn., ante, 123 Cal.Rptr.2d at pp. 7-9, 50 P.3d at pp. 723-725.) Because the FEHA did not previously contain a bilateral opt-out provision and the question of consent and its impact on the judicial powers analysis was not at issue in Walnut Creek Manor, the court is supposedly at liberty to reconsider its prior conclusions.
     As the Court of Appeal below correctly understood, however, the CFTC rationale does not--and cannot--obtain when the judicial powers concern is one of substance rather than procedure. The Supreme Court expressly recognized this distinction: "Article III, § 1, safeguards the role of the Judicial Branch in our tripartite system by barring congressional attempts 'to transfer jurisdiction [to non-Article III tribunals] for the purpose of emasculating' constitutional courts, [citation], and thereby preventing 'the encroachment or aggrandizement of one branch at the expense of the other.' [Citations.] To the extent that this structural principle is implicated in a given case, the parties cannot by consent cure the constitutional difficulty for the same reason that the parties by consent cannot confer on federal courts subject-matter jurisdiction beyond the limitations imposed by Article III, § 2. [Citation.] When these Article III limitations are at issue, notions of consent and waiver cannot be dispositive because the limitations serve institutional interests that the parties cannot be expected to protect." (CFTC, supra, 478 U.S. at pp. 850-851, 106 S.Ct. 3245.)
     What the high court characterized as a "structural" limitation in CFTC, this court identified as a "substantive" one in Walnut Creek Manor. (See Walnut Creek Manor, supra, 54 Cal.3d at pp. 256, 265-266, 284 Cal.Rptr. 718, 814 P.2d 704; McHugh, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 372, 261 Cal.Rptr. 318, 777 P.2d 91.) Whatever the label, the principle remains the same: the parties cannot confer upon an administrative agency authority that contravenes constitutional constraints. (Cf. Walnut Creek Manor, at pp. 257, 265, 284 Cal.Rptr. 718, 814 P.2d 704; McHugh, at p. 364, 261 Cal.Rptr. 318, 777 P.2d 91.) Regardless of consent, the award of compensatory damages remains a " 'judicial function' " (Walnut Creek Manor, at p. 262, 284 Cal.Rptr. 718, 814 P.2d 704) that " 'has traditionally been left to the trier of fact.' " (Id. at p. 263, 284 Cal.Rptr. 718, 814 P.2d 704.) Nor can consent shift the remedial focus of the administrative hearing back to "affirmative actions designed to redress the particular instance of unlawful housing discrimination and prevent its recurrence." (Id. at p. 264, 284 Cal.Rptr. 718, 814 P.2d 704.) For the majority to hold otherwise misperceives not only the content of the judicial powers clause but, more importantly, its constitutional significance to the very structure of our governmental system."

* Employment discrimination: Brown tried to overturn a ruling made by another Bush nominee that prohibited an employer from using racial epithets against a Latino employee, citing the First Amendment ({Aguilar v. Avis Rent a Car}).

Bushwa. SCOTUSBlog: "Brown also strongly supported free speech in a dissent to Aguilar v. Avis Rent A Car System Inc., 21 Cal.4th 121 (1999). The case concerned an injunction by a trial court prohibiting an employee of Avis from using racial epithets against the plaintiffs. The employee challenged the injunction as a prior restraint on his free speech. The majority found that a remedial injunction to prevent further racial epithets does not violate the right to free speech if the epithets have contributed or will contribute to a hostile work environment that constitutes employment discrimination. Brown begins her dissent with a robust view of free speech as requiring the protection of all viewpoints, even viewpoints that are deeply offensive to others. "[T]hough the expression of such sentiments may cause much misery and mischief, hateful thoughts cannot be quelled at too great a cost to freedom." In this case, Brown finds little support for the suppression of free speech. (Justice Clarence Thomas later dissented from the U.S. Supreme Court’s failure to review the decision.)"

And by the way--I'm trying to cut back on my cursing, so FYI, I've begun substituting the word "Bushwa" for "Bullshit."

Important note to those of you who like the idea of 2nd Amendment Incorporation to the states: SCOTUSBlog: "It is hard to elucidate Brown's views on gun ownership. In Great Western Shows, Inc. v. County of Los Angeles, 27 Cal.4th 853 (2002), the majority held, first, that state law does not compel counties to allow their property to be used for gun shows; and second, that a county may regulate the sale of firearms on its property. Brown dissented from the holding, but on the narrow ground that, under state law, a county cannot "enact police power regulations governing the use of its property by independent parties to whom it has leased the property."

In another gun case, Kasler v. Lockyer, 23 Cal.4th 472 (2000), Brown, writing for the majority, upheld California's Assault Weapons Ban, but only over equal protection, separation of powers, and due process objections, not against a Second Amendment challenge. However, she does emphasize that the California constitution contains no fundamental right to bear arms; indeed, she points out that the regulation of firearms has always been a proper police function of California. Evident in Kasler, as in American Academy of Pediatrics, is Brown's strong principle of judicial deference to legislative findings."

"The public school system is already so beleaguered by bureaucracy; so cowed by the demands of due process; so overwhelmed with faddish curricula that its educational purpose is almost an afterthought."
- Janice Rogers Brown

"The quixotic desire to do good, be universally fair and make everybody happy is understandable. Indeed, the majority's zeal is more than a little endearing. There is only one problem with this approach. We are a court."
- Janice Rogers Brown

From "Have Faith In Massachusetts: "The previous session had been overwhelmed with a record number of bills introduced, many of them in an attempt to help the employee by impairing the property of the employer. Though anxious to improve the condition of our wage earners, I believed this doctrine would destroy business and deprive them of a livelihood. What was needed was a restoration of confidence in our institutions and in each other, on which economic progress might rest.

In taking the chair as President of the Senate I therefore made a short address, which I had carefully prepared, appealing to the conservative spirit of the people. I argued that the government could not relieve us from toil, that large concerns are necessary for the progress in which capital and labor all have a common interest, and I defended representative government and the integrity of the courts...

"Many people in the Commonwealth had been waiting for such a word, and the effect was beyond my expectation. Confusion of thought began to disappear, and unsound legislative proposals to diminish."

One day shy of the nineteenth anniversary of this speech - the day following Coolidge's sudden death at age 61 - the New York Sun published the following quote from a recent Coolidge interview regarding the first four years of the New Deal:

"These socialistic notions of government are not of my day. When I was in office, tax reduction, debt reduction, tariff stability and economy were the things to which I gave attention. We succeeded on those lines."

The Harding-Coolidge ticket had been elected to reverse the economic fortunes of the nation, which, in 1920, was in a deep depression. Coolidge recalled, "For months following the Armistice we had persisted in a course of much extravagance and reckless buying. Wages had been paid that had not been earned. The whole country, from the national government down, had been living on borrowed money."

In a speech at Philadelphia delivered just before the election, vice-presidential candidate Coolidge offered his solution. He later recalled:

"I contended that the only sure way of relieving this distress was for the country to follow the advice of Benjamin Franklin and begin to work and save. Our productive capacity is sufficient to maintain us all in a state of prosperity if we give sufficient attention to thrift and industry. Within a year the country had adopted that course, which has brought an era of great plenty."

Harding and Coolidge reduced the top federal income tax rate, which was at seventy-seven percent when they took office. In his 1924 State of the Union message, Coolidge argued, "I am convinced that the larger incomes of the country would actually yield more revenue to the government if the basis of taxation were scientifically revised downward."

It worked. By 1927, after cutting marginal tax rates nearly in half, seventy percent of all income tax revenue came from people with incomes above $50,000. Now remember, this is 1927. In 1920, those earning less than $5,000 per year had paid nearly one dollar in federal tax for every six dollars earned; by 1929 they paid one dollar for each $2,500 earned. Indeed, by that point ninety-eight percent of all Americans paid no income tax at all. Unemployment, which had been at 20 percent in 1921, remained steady at 3.3 percent during Coolidge's presidency. Federal budgets were balanced, the national debt was cut by one-third and the gross national product grew seven percent per year between 1924 and 1929. It is little wonder that in his time Calvin Coolidge was enormously popular.

Coolidge's post-mortem claim of success was clearly justified. So why has history dismissed, instead of celebrated, this exceptional leader and his remarkable record? The Great Depression altered everything. In 1927, the song that topped the charts was "I'm Looking over a Four Leaf Clover". Five years later it was "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" History's view of Coolidge was obscured by the sunless decade of the 1930's, and by his successors.

President Roosevelt's New Deal was a dramatic departure from earlier policies. Anxious to implement their big government programs, the ‘new-dealers' needed to explain why tax cuts, frugal budgets and private enterprise would not do the trick this time. The perfect answer was to blame the depression itself on the policies of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover...But the stock market crash of October 1929 did not ‘cause' the depression, any more than the stock market crash of 1987 ‘caused' the ‘Great Depression' of the 1990's. Indeed, by December 1929, the market had stabilized, and by the following May half of the loss of value at the crash had been restored. One month later, upon passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the market resumed its slide, losing 89 percent of its 1929 peak value over the following two years.

We now understand that a series of misguided tax, trade and monetary actions either brought the depression on or dramatically deepened and extended it. The decisions to tighten the money supply, raise taxes and enact the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Act were entirely the responsibility of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. And by totally rejecting the Coolidge policies, Roosevelt and Hoover unintentionally prolonged the Great Depression by years...

Coolidge was the antithesis of the materialistic servant-of-industry portrayed by his successors. His defense of property rights was driven not by a desire to serve the wealthy but relieve the plight of the poor and promote the progress of civilization. Spirituality and public service, not materialism, were his motivations. In fact, the majority of his speeches dealt with peace, internationalism, morality, individualism, and public service.

Even Coolidge's defining statement – "The business of America is business," – is a misquote, a distortion. His actual statement was,

"After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world."

His true quote merely states a fact; it does not equate the purpose of the nation with the accumulation of wealth. And to underscore this point in the same speech he continued his thought with the following, which I have edited for time and clarity:

"Of course, the accumulation of wealth can not be justified as the chief end of existence. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it...

There always have been, and probably always will be some who will feel that their own temporary interest may be furthered by betraying the interest of others...Their influence, whatever it may seem at a particular moment, is always ephemeral...They may at times somewhat retard and delay [the] progress [of the race], but in the end their opposition will be overcome. They have no permanent effect...The power of the spirit always prevails over the power of the flesh. These furnish us no justification for interfering with...freedom...because all freedom, though it may sometimes tend toward excesses, bears within it those remedies which will finally effect a cure for its own disorders."

Coolidge resisted greater government regulation of business not out of a desire to shield the guilty, but out of his abiding faith in freedom, the decency of the people and that, "the power of the spirit always prevails over the power of the flesh."

In "Have Faith in Massachusetts," Coolidge explained the basis for his beliefs:

"Man has a spiritual nature. Touch it, and it must respond as the magnet responds to the pole. To that, not to selfishness, let the laws of the Commonwealth appeal. Recognize the immortal worth and dignity of man. Let the laws of Massachusetts proclaim to her humblest citizen, performing the most menial task, the recognition of his manhood, the recognition that all men are peers, the humblest with the most exalted, the recognition that all work is glorified. Such is the path to equality before the law. Such is the foundation of liberty under the law. Such is the sublime revelation of man's relation to man – Democracy."

Coolidge received the Vice-Presidential nomination in 1920 as a popular protest of the brokering by party elite that placed Senator Warren Harding atop the ticket. Harding's administration was peopled by corrupt men. Scandals surfaced and swirled before his death. Coolidge, untainted by this, moved forcefully to investigate, expose and rectify the misdeeds, and restore faith in the presidency.

Could there have been a more powerful proof of Coolidge's faith in the people and his belief in the ephemeral nature of human evil?

The cloud of the Great Depression has covered the light and grace of Coolidge's life and record. But for me, his presidency, and indeed his life, represent a heroic demonstration that character and integrity can and must guide our choice of leaders, and if they are allowed access to the truth, faith in the people is never misplaced.

(from J. Wennberg's speech on the former president)

"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
- Calvin Coolidge

A great speech against the League of Nations by then Senator James Reed--still applicable today!

America The Stingy (The U.N. And Norway Can ESAD)

America's Greatest President

America's oldest enemy, still alive and kicking (just like they are in Quebec)

Eagle Eye's Links Page (Great Self-Defense Rights Links)!

Freeper Lingo

Give women the benefit of the doubt in court, and men the burden of proof? Hell, no!

How to Search

Interesting - A Libertarian Atheist Argues Pro-Life (against "Pro-Choice" Catholics)

Is there a Best Pistol/Best Shotgun?

Join the Society Against Pointless Excerpting (SAPE)

Learn How Logical Argument Works (somewhat needed on FR, desperately needed on DU)

Extended Logic primer

More Logic--a list of fallacies and basic inductive/deductive logic

Miserable Failure

Moderators - Who Did That?

Simply the best talk radio host on the air today.

The History Of Free Republic

The Rules--by Men, for Women

Useful Html Primer

Why Congress, the Executive, and the Supreme Court don't want changes made

Why judicial supremacy, especially that of the Supreme Court, is a joke

Your first gun

Who runs what Ping Lists?

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IF YOU THINK MY HOMEPAGE IS TOO LONG, AS TO WHAT YOU THINK,

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Boy, you're a nosy one. The words you are reading here replace a rather large list, posted so as not to be obvious (as these words are), of people that I personally find disappointing here on FR, associated with the general reasons I found their presence disappointing. JimRob preferred I remove them as he found those lists to constitute personal attacks. I certainly defer to his judgment, as he is the one running the site, and he knows where the line he wants to set and the tone he prefers to maintain for FreeRepublic have been crossed. Those lists did not meet his standards, and they've been deleted from this page.

That notwithstanding, I did post them and have no concerns about HOW I posted them beyond the explanation I made along with the lists. They were posted quite subtly, btw, for the reason I stated along with the list, and I don't believe I ever drew anyone else's attention to them, because they were primarily for my use. I'm sure you can find them on Google, but more likely, if you're looking here, you've already seen the lists.

There are certainly folks who have ended all hope of what they consider reasonable debate with me and do not post back and forth to me, probably more than a few of whom I'm entirely unaware. There are others who may keep a cautious distance from me and post only when it's not likely to cause flames to fly. Those lists served a similar purpose with me--a reminder that I've little optimism that rational discussion with the names listed was possible or likely, and a mark for me that I shouldn't post to them without expecting difficulty. People reap what they've sown, and I've certainly done both, as have the names on the lists. If I've posted or replied to them after I put their names on the list, it was either a lapse of good judgment or other momentary weakness, most likely on a subject that I simply felt would not create flames a-flying.

So if you were named on any of the lists, and concerned about it, I don't think there's anything more to say, as you've read the criticisms and find them valid or invalid, as you will. I certainly won't be replying to any further freepmails or posts about `em, or responding generally to the folks on the lists--that was the point of the lists!--so any vitriol poured out upon me by a self-styled 'victim' will go to waste. I understand Jim's concerns about those lists as a personal attack, and I won't post them here again or even Freepmail them, but that doesn't change that they were posted for a reason, or that I will continue to maintain them personally.

What I think is funniest about this is that someone actually found it somehow would pose a threat to me to 'reveal' lists I'd publicly posted, if not particularly loudly, just as some have tried to mess with the links I've posted on this page. As if I would quake in my boots over the repercussions of my own beliefs. Personal responsibility is something conservatives preach but too often don't practice. Humans deal with the fallout from their own decisions every day, and while everyone has regrets, I'm not one to lose sleep over the past, nor am I about to regret stating the truth as I see it. Others are eager to avoid the results of their own decisions, or fob off culpability on others, and those would be the folks most likely to find it a threat to have THEIR true beliefs exposed. We call these folks liberals. Too many of them prefer to stay in the closet and weaken the conservative movement from within instead of admitting to themselves what they are and allying themselves with their fellows. And if you came here looking to confirm something to whine about, you probably qualify.

Miserable Failure Président de la République française

"Everything one has a right to do is not best to be done."

"Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts."

"It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it."

"When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred."

"The masses, if given free rein, would vote themselves free beer and pull down the churches and country houses that had been established to show the blessings of order."

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."

"I'm sure we can all pull together, sir."
"Oh, I do hope not, I really do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions."

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

"Remember: liberals are never judged by their actions, only their intentions. This is how radical liberalism begat the abomination known as National Socialism in Europe in the 1930s."

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

"A Locrian who proposed any new law stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled."

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money."

"One hundred RINOs do more damage than a thousand Democrats."

"Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army."

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or by both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress."

"Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. "

"If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist. "

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. "

"What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. "

"May God prevent us from becoming 'thinking men,' that is to say, men who agree perfectly with their own police."

"Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too."

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."

"To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as morals."

"It is not the business of the law to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright."

"It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color."

"Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind."

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."

"Be suspicious of all politicians."

"I would rather die standing on two feet than live my life on my knees."

"I don't believe in polls. Jesus Christ was crucified on a pole."

"Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals. "

"When we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble."

"Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong."

"Men are qualified for civil liberties in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites: in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity"

"The spectacle of a judge pouring over the picture of some nude, trying to ascertain the extent to which she arouses prurient interests, and then attempting to write an opinion which explains the difference between that nude and some other nude has elements of low comedy."

"The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out."

"Government should allow persons to engage in whatever conduct they want to, no matter how deviant or abnormal it may be, so long as (a) they know what they are doing, (b) they consent to it, and (c) no one--at least no one other than the participants--is harmed by it."

"Anyone who does anything for pleasure to indulge his selfish soul will surely burn in Hell."

"The legal code can never be identified with the code of morals. It is no more the function of government to impose a moral code than to impose a religious code. And for the same reason."

"Morality cannot exist one minute without freedom... Only a free man can possibly be moral. Unless a good deed is voluntary, it has no moral significance."

"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes."

"All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores."

"The growth of drug-related crime is a far greater evil to society as a whole than drug taking. Even so, because we have been seduced by the idea that governments should legislate for our own good, very few people can see how dangerously absurd the present policy is."

"A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things."

"The other thing we have to do is to take seriously the role in this problem of...older men who prey on underage women...There are consequences to decisions and...one way or the other, people always wind up being held accountable."

"Every effort to confine Americanism to a single pattern, to constrain it to a single formula, is disloyalty to everything that is valid in Americanism."

"The holier-than-thou activists who blame the population for not spending more money on their personal crusades are worse than aggravating. They encourage the repudiation of personal responsibility by spreading the lie that support of a government program fulfills individual moral duty."

"In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes."

"As to Jesus of Nazareth ... I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity."

"To deny freedom of the will is to make morality impossible."

"The most efficacious method of dealing with deviancy is to ignore, to the furthest point of our tolerance, those items which we find offensive."

"The ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the wrong beliefs."

"In a society in which it is a moral offense to be different from your neighbor your only escape is to never let them find out."

"What are the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism is a sin."

"[A] prohibition on moral judgments against various sexual behaviors is a violation of the freedom, even of the religious liberty, of those who view such behavior as wrong. If we don't have a right to act according to our religious belief by forming judgments according to those beliefs about human conduct and behavior, then, exactly what does the free exercise of religion mean? Can the free exercise of religion really mean simply that I have the right to believe that God has ordained certain things to be right or wrong but that I can't act accordingly? Surely free exercise means the freedom to act according to belief. And, yet, if we are not allowed to act according to belief when it comes to fundamental moral precepts, then what will be the moral implications of religion? None at all. But if we accept an understanding of religious liberty that doesn't permit us to discriminate the wheat from the chaff in our own actions and those of others, haven't we in fact permitted the government to dictate to us a uniform approach to religion? And, isn't that dictation of uniformity in religion exactly what the First Amendment intended to forbid?"

"I am determined my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is."

"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."

" Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose."

"We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach."

"Moral indignation in most cases is, 2% moral, 48% indignation, and 50% envy."

"Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time"

"Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible. He who has trusted where he ought not will surely mistrust where he ought not."

"The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty."

"Government employees (Bureaucrats) like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems."

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

"Some years ago an excellent professor of economics told his class in his gravelly voice, 'If you pay me $50,000 a year to solve a problem, I damned sure ain't going to solve it.'"

"I was once a heroic consumer reporter. Now I'm a threat to journalism...I did a terrible thing. Instead of just applying my skepticism to business, I applied it to government."

"American Indians are caught in the same dilemma as libertarians. We're neither left nor right. We're just for freedom. The Left only came around when they needed martyrs. When we wouldn't be martyrs, they abandoned us...I'm for a free market. I only oppose the misuse of technology. A libertarian society would not allow anyone to injure others by pollution because it insists on individual responsibility. That's part of the beauty of libertarianism."

"True friends stab you in the front."

"The law of supply and demand is like the law of gravity--it overrules any law of state. When ever prices are set artificially low (rent control, socialized medicine) there are shortages, and whenever prices are artificially high (farm price supports) there are surpluses. You never hear people with any brains in their heads use phrases like 'affordable housing,' 'fair wages,' or 'overpriced stock market.' Reality is that government interference in the market place only creates surpluses and shortages."

" Let's be clear. 'Intelligent design' may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological 'theory' whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge--in this case, evolution--they are to be filled by God. It is a 'theory' that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species, but that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, 'I think I'll make me a lemur today.'

"People in the entertainment industry are by and large whore-chasing, drug-addict fuck-ups. But they still believe they're better than the guy in Wyoming who really loves his wife, and takes care of his kids, and is a good, outstanding, wholesome person. Hollywood views regular people as children, and they think they're the smart ones who need to tell the idiots out there how to be."

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

"If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves."

"One man with a gun can control 100 without one."

"Whatever the needs of the public are, the government responds to those needs by getting larger."

"Government almost never polices itself. When government agencies lose money, or fail at their missions, they ask Congress for more money. They usually get it, citing their failure to achieve their goals as proof that they need more funds."

"Democracy is indispensable to socialism."

"For [politicians], the question is always, 'What kind of government intervention should we impose on the world?' They never think that maybe we shouldn't."

"Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."

"When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser."

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it."

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

"The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt."

"The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights."

"The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government."

"The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind."

"If you support the war on drugs in its present form, then you're only paying lip-service to the defense of freedom, and you don't really grasp the concept of the sovereign individual human being."

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."

"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek, a goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"

"[T]ruth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it; but there it is."

"Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one."

"Of all ignorance, the ignorance of the educated is the most dangerous. Not only are educated people likely to have more influence, they are the last people to suspect that they don't know what they are talking about when they go outside their narrow fields."

" I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air--that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave."

"Without the South, John Kerry would be President. Without the South, Diane Feinstein, Chuck Shumer, and Ted Kennedy would have confiscated all the guns from law-abiding citizens. Without the South, "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" would be standard fare for TV, and every "man" would be a flaming metrosexual. Without the South, the US would be just a bunch of damn Yankees who have no idea how to prepare a batch of Collard greens. In other words, without the South, the US would be Canada."

"Criminals don't want their victims to be armed. Oddly enough, neither do many governments."

"Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace."

"War is an ugly thing, [It is] not the ugliest of things. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."

"...[W]hen all government...shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe that they are free."

"There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action."

"There are 300 murders a year in the District, but at least you got me."

"Is there traffic congestion? Ban all cars! Water shortage? Drink less water! Postal deficit? Cut mail deliveries to one a day! Crime in urban areas? Impose curfews! No private supplier could long stay in business if he thus reacted to the wishes of customers? But when government is the supplier, instead of being guided by what the customer wants, it directs him to do with less or do without. While the motto of private enterprise is "the customer is always right," the slogan of government is "the public be damned!"

"I believe everything admirable in the modern world results from the use of Argument by Experiment together with Argument by Logic (without making an Idol of either), whereas everything heinous and terrible results from the persistence of the older habits of Arguments by Authority, Intimidation, Self Interest and Legal Precedent, or the various forms of calling the other side sons of bitches. "

"Guns cause crime like wet sidewalks cause rain, cameras cause pornography, and spoons cause Rosie to be fat and stupid."

"The Declaration of Independence is so lucid we're afraid of it today. It scares the hell out of every modern bureaucrat, because it tells them there comes a time when we must stop taking orders."

"Experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms [of government], those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed--and hence clamorous to be led to safety--by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve...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 the other persons to whom it doesn't 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. Then abolish that law without delay...No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic."

"The one thing government has which we (you or I or any corporation) DON'T have, is the ability to use deadly force to accomplish its goals."

"A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interests, combined in one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in banks."

"... if you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band, and all of the libertarian attitudes will logically fall into place."

"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff."

"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."

"Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure."

"Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery."

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

"It is foolhardy to think we can eliminate tyranny from the planet, and foolhardy to make such a task the goal of the United States. The Founders had a far more modest, and realistic, vision: to establish freedom here."

"The government of the absolute majority is but the government of the strongest interests; and when not effectively checked, is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised. [To read the Constitution is to realize that] no free system was ever farther removed from the principle that the absolute majority, without check or limitation, ought to govern."

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

"There is nothing quite so depressing as waking up to face a day when you know that you are going to have to deal with a government office or bureaucrat."

"I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time."

"Of course the people dont want war...that is understood. But voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

"Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted."

"We're in a bus headed off a cliff, and mostly what the two parties want to argue about is who gets to drive."

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

"It has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing the principles of Freedom, to say, that government is a compact between those who govern and those that are governed: but this cannot be true, because it is putting the effect before the cause; for as man must have existed before governments existed, there necessarily was a time when governments did not exist, and consequently there could originally exist no governors to form such a compact with. The fact therefore must be, that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist."

"Puns are little 'plays on words' that a certain breed of person loves to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they have plenty of food and water."

"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

"A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution is power without a right. All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must be either delegated, or assumed. There are not other sources. all delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either."

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone."

"The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government."

"[B]ecause you have never lost your freedom, because you have never been conquered, because you have never had all your possessions taken from you, you are now willing to surrender your freedom, independence, and autonomy by inches. You simply don't notice it, but one inch at a time, it slips away."

"A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide."

"Our forefathers made one mistake. What they should have fought for was representation without taxation."

"Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages."

"The Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller, and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then get elected and prove it."

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog."

"The most widespread form of child abuse in the United States is parents' sending children to the government to be educated."

"The enemy isn't conservatism. The enemy isn't liberalism. The enemy is bullshit."

"People who make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism."

"The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects, and what they thus lost they have never got back."

"Restricted immigration is not an offensive but purely a defensive action. It is not adopted in criticism ...it solely for the purpose of protecting ourselves."

"Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice."

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public office save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country."

"When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that an old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had only one before."

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."

"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed--where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."

"A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect."

"Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings."

"A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise."

"Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil--only evil--and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs."

"If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves."

"The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse - that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it."

"You have to believe in God before you can say there are things that man was not meant to know. I don't think there's anything man wasn't meant to know. There are just some stupid things that people shouldn't do."

"The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented."

"One man's theology is another man's belly laugh."

"The people who signed the pretended "U.S. Constitution," called themselves "We The People... " They were lying. They signed it as individuals. And they never signed it in any way to make it a binding contract."

"You have a choice between the natural stability of gold and the honesty and intelligence of the members of government. And with all due respect for those gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the capitalist system lasts, vote for gold."

"When you advocate any government action, you must first believe that violence is the best answer to the question at hand."

"It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income."

"A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man."

"A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket."

"Fabianism can be summarized in one sentence: 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.' It always means this: 'I'm here to help myself to whatever you own that is not hidden, and in exchange, I promise to do the same thing to your next-door neighbors.'"

"You can talk about 'social justice' all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get reelected That is not social justice or any other kind of justice."

"First they came for the druggies, and I didn't care because I wasn't a druggie. Next they came for the insider traders, and I didn't care because I didn't even understand what insider trading was. Then they came for the gun owners, then the chess players, then the tobacco smokers, then the home-schoolers, then the big businessmen, then the small businessmen, and I wondered: where did the government get the right to jail and harass people who never hurt anyone?"

"The way democracy works today, everyone wants to safeguard their own keepings but they want to make sure the system is rigged so that they can keep on plundering from everyone else. That may be the best definition of democracy, the ultimate game of plunder."

"The reactionary tendencies of both liberals and conservatives today show clearly in their willingness to cede, to the state or the community, power far beyond the protection of liberty against violence. For differing purposes, both see the state as an instrument not protecting man's freedom but either instructing or restricting how that freedom is to be used."

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

"What mankind needs today is liberation from the rule of nonsensical slogans and a return to sound reasoning."

"When your money is taken by a thief, you get nothing in return. When your money is taken through taxes to support needless bureaucrats, precisely the same situation exists."

"Republic...it means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose."

"Prostitution involves sex and free enterprise. Which of these are you opposed to?"

"It is not unjust that millionaires have less than billionaires."

"There are just two rules of governance in a free society: mind your own business; keep your hands to yourself."

"There are definitely conservatives who are more pro-capitalism than pro-war, and liberals who are more pro-peace than pro-socialism. On the other hand, there are those on the Right who don't mind the welfare state, so long as it accompanies empire; and there are those on the Left who don't mind bombing a few countries and trashing the Fourth Amendment as long as the government also provides a free lunch. The first kind of leftists and rightists should be working together to oppose the second kind, who always manage to be the ones in control of the state and its two parties."

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."

"People constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men."

"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cake and ale?"

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

"The division of "economic" and "social" issues is a false dichotomy. The only real spectrum is from liberty to oppression, with anarchy on the far right and totalitarianism on the far left. All true conservatives are libertarians (with a lowercase 'l'). There are also statists who call themselves conservative, but they differ from left-wing statists only in the particulars of which things they will immorally coerce...Conservatives believe in personal responsibility--i.e., the freedom to make conscientious choices & the expectation of accepting the consequences of those choices, rather than shifting them to someone else. The government is not our Mommy. It's there to prevent infringement of rights, and nothing else. Prostitution does not necessarily infringe on anyone's rights (though a spouse unwittingly exposed to disease by such activities might have good cause for bringing governmental power to bear, at least via a civil case). Smoking marijuana does not infringe anyone's rights (but recklessly operating a vehicle under its influence would). Abortion most certainly *does* infringe on the rights of the unborn child, and therefore government has a duty to prevent it...The muddled political philosophy of you statist types is built not on any fundamental principles about what government ought to be, but on emotional responses like "I don't like sodomy, so let's ban it", which is indistinguishable from your leftist comrades' notions of 'I don't like guns, so let's ban 'em.'"

"Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone: it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave."

"The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when the fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression."

"The States supposed that by their tenth amendment, they had secured themselves against constructive powers."

"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

"The liberties of our country, are worth defending at all hazards. We have received them from our worthy ancestors: They purchased them for us with toil, treasure and blood. It will bring an everlasting infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us...or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men."

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents....If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."

"Conservatives who make excuses for Republican attacks on the free market, who outright defend corporate welfare but have no sympathy for the innocent Martha Stewarts of the world, who are addicted to government power in the name of fighting drug abuse, who defend the biggest spending administration in decades, who think huge deficits are fine if caused by the GOP, who believe accused "terrorists" don't deserve due process, who consider it proper to have police on every street corner and snipers on every rooftop in the nation's capital, who have a romantic obsession with war and the mass murder it entails--do they really think what they believe isn't a brand of socialism?"

"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to prevailing superstition or taboo."

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government. "

"The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it."

"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance."

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

"Government is essentially immoral."

"The more reason, the less government."

"Fear is the foundation of most governments."

"Government is not the doctor. It is the disease."

"A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy."

"Good government is no substitute for self-government."

"It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for."

"Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us."

"Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it."

"Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed."

"There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well."

"While we're at it, let's attack alcoholism by banning the sale of shotglasses, olives, and maraschino cherries."

"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office."

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever."

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

"An honest man can feel no Pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule--and both commonly succeed, and are right."

"The Opposition aren't really the Opposition. They're just called the Opposition. But in fact they are the Opposition in exile. The Civil Service are the Opposition in residence."

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

"A man may be loyal to his government and yet oppose the particular principles and methods of administration."

"I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life."

"The puritanism of Christianity has played havoc with the moderation that an enlightened and tolerant critical spirit would have produced. I've noticed that in whatever country, county, town, or other region there is a regulation enjoining temperance, the population seems to be entirely composed of teetotallers and drunkards. There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire--poison and antidote."

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all."

"A courtyard common to all will be swept by none."

"The function of government ought to be: make sure you have good water to drink, somebody picking up the garbage, good roads to drive on, enough electricity to turn your light bulbs and your record player on, and whatever smaller amounts of regulatory assistance is necessary to make this society work."

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

"'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'"

"Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself."

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

"It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so -- because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States."

"The statesman who would attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it."

"I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies."

"So long as men worship dictators, Caesars and Napoleons will arise to make them miserable."

"It is asserted by most respectable writers upon our government, that a well-regulated militia, composed of the yeomanry of the country, have ever been considered the bulwark of a free people. Tyrants have never placed any confidence on a militia composed of freemen."

"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens...Lenin was certainly right."

"Law is justice. In this proposition a simple and enduring government can be conceived. And I defy anyone to say how even the thought of revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest uprising could arise against a government whose organized force was confined only to suppressing injustice."

"Our government has become too responsive to trivial or ephemeral concerns, often at the expense of more important concerns or an erosion of our liberty, and it has made policy priorities more dependent on where TV journalists happen to point their cameras...As a nation we have lost our sense of tragedy, a recognition that bad things happen to good people. A nation that expects the government to prevent churches from burning, to control the price of bread or gasoline, to secure every job, and to find some villain for every dramatic accident, risks an even larger loss of life and liberty."

"Today the primary threat to the liberties of the American people comes not from communism, foreign tyrants or dictators. It comes from the tendency on our own shores to centralize power, to trust bureaucracies rather than people."

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse form the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years."

"There is a kind of dictatorship that can come about through a creeping paralysis of thought, readiness to accept paternalistic measures by government, and along with those measures comes a surrender of our own responsibilities and therefore a surrender of our own thought over our own lives and our own right to exercise the vote. The free system gives the right to every citizen to do something for himself. Because he has the right, the opportunity is always there."

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."

"If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end."

"Government loses its claim to legitimacy when it fails to fulfill its obligations."

"The best view of government is in the rearview mirror as you're driving away from it."

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

"Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people."

"This used to be a government of checks and balances. Now it's all checks and no balances."

"It is not who governs, but what government is entitled to do, that is the essential problem."

"Governments should not possess instruments of coercion and violence denied to their citizens."

"The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare."

"Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it gets out of its way."

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth. The man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?"

"No nation went into oblivion or was destroyed because it had bad laws, or because its statesmen were not intelligent, but because of INTERNAL CORRUPTION, and because they could not maintain the POWER OF SELF-CONTROL."

"Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good."

"Calvin: Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?
Hobbes: I'm not sure man needs the help."

"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power."

"It has been observed, by an honorable gentleman, that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity. When they assembled, the field of debate presented an ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared for every enormity."

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."

"Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time."

"O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe, Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her as a stranger and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive and prepare in time an asylum for mankind."

"The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught."

"History shows that there is nothing so easy to enslave and nothing so hard to emancipate as ignorance, hence it becomes the double enemy of civilization. By its servility it is the prey of tyranny, and by its credulity it is the foe of enlightenment"

"There is no tyrant like custom, and no freedom where its edicts are not resisted."

"Necessity is the excuse for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of the tyrant and the creed of the slave."

"Those who voluntarily put power into the hands of a tyrant or an enemy, must not wonder if it be at last turned against themselves."

"One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded."

"No law can give power to private persons; every law transfers power from private persons to government."

"Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law."

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."

"And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them."

"The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other."

"People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can't live within its income."

"It's every American's duty to support his government, but not necessarily in the style to which it has become accustomed."

"The government was set to protect man from criminals, and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government."

"The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves."

"The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power."

"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another."

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets."

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one."

"What experience and history teach is this—that people and governments never have learnt anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

"I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."

"I do not wish to give up the power of personal arms and be defenseless against those who will ever and always keep and bear arms those in crime and those in government."

"Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from birth what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government to do good."

"[Government] 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution...the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off."

"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it."

"Government [is] operated by deeply embedded, hopelessly entangled bureaus where nothing is accomplished because the function of the bureau is to intercept every living idea and smother it."

"Regardless of the strength of the government's interest [in protecting children,] the level of discourse reaching a mailbox simply cannot be limited to that which would be suitable for a sandbox."

"Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are NOT good?"

"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."

"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place oblige it to control itself."

"To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution."

"If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law."

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

"There is far more danger in public than in private monopoly, for when Government goes into business it can always shift its losses to the taxpayers. Government never makes ends meet, and that is the first requisite of business."

It's the Government's job to print the money, deliver the mail and declare war. Now give me my cigarettes."

"All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second."

"Of course, trusting the government with your privacy is like having a Peeping Tom install your window blinds."

"Law represents the effort of man to organize society; governments, the efforts of selfishness to overthrow liberty."

"There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate government action."

"Where is it written in the Constitution that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or wickedness of government may engage it?"

"[The Libertarian presidential candidate's] idea is that 'government power is opposed to individual liberty.' Must we still debate such sophomoric notions?... Besides, liberty, although very important, is not the only value."

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

"If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual."

"The world of antitrust is reminiscent of Alice's Wonderland: everything seemingly is, yet apparently isn't, simultaneously. It is a world in which competition is lauded as the basic axiom and guiding principle, yet "too much" competition is condemned as "cutthroat." It is a world in which actions designed to limit competition are branded as criminal when taken by businessmen, yet praised as "enlightened" when initiated by the government. It is a world in which the law is so vague that businessmen have no way of knowing whether specific actions will be declared illegal until they hear the judge's verdict after the fact."

"Believe, if you will, that there may have been faults in our industrial system, yet the fact remains that the welfare of the average man has not so far advanced under any other form of government, and that whatever evil exists will not be corrected by delegating to government, with all its weaknesses, the authority to run and control all business and to control the daily lives and activities of laboring mankind. Nor will any existing waste and extravagance of government be eliminated or appreciably diminished until the average man realizes that the burden of paying its bills will, through direct or indirect taxation, ultimately fall upon him, his children or his children's children."

"After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

"The Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features, Sir, they appear to me horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting, it squints towards monarchy. And does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American? Your president may easily become king...Where are your checks in this government?...I would rather infinitely, and I am sure most of this convention are of the same opinion, have a king, lords, and commons than a government so replete with such insupportable evils."

"There is a central myth about British science and economic growth, and it goes like this: science breeds wealth, Britain is in economic decline, therefore Britain has not done enough science. Actually, it is easy to show that a key cause of Britain's economic decline has been that the government has funded too much science...Post-war British science policy illustrates the folly of wasting money on research. The government decided, as it surveyed the ruins of war-torn Europe in 1945, that the future lay in computers, nuclear power and jet aircraft, so successive administrations poured money into these projects—to vast technical success. The world's first commercial mainframe computer was British, sold by Ferrranti in 1951; the world's first commercial jet aircraft was British, the Comet, in service in 1952; the first nuclear power station was British, Calder Hall, commissioned in 1956; and the world's first and only supersonic commercial jet aircraft was Anglo-French, Concorde, in service in 1976. Yet these technical advances crippled us economically, because they were so uncommercial. The nuclear generation of electricity, for example, had lost 2.1 billion pounds by 1975 (2.1 billion pounds was a lot then); Concorde had lost us, alone, 2.3 billion pounds by 1976; the Comet crashed and America now dominates computers. Had these vast sums of money not been wasted on research, we would now be a significantly richer country."

"The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if Rome doesn't want to become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

"The New Dealers, labor politicians and Socialists have tried to take advantage of the natural American instinct for charity to forward their plans to socialize the furnishing of the necessities of life to all. If the Government gives free medical care to everybody, why not free food, clothing and housing?"

"Government means politics, and interference by government carries with it always the implication of coercion. We may accept the expanding power of bureaucrats so long as we bask in their friendly smile. But it is a dangerous temptation. Today politics may be our friend and tomorrow we may be its victims."

"If you're poor, Washington provides food stamps, Aid to Families with Dependent Children payments, and subsidized housing. If you're rich, you can buy tax-free municipal bonds and thumb your nose at the IRS. But if you're a working stiff, you can expect only anxiety and the government's hand deep in your pocket."

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

"That government is best which governs the least, so taught the courageous founders of this nation. This simple declaration is diametrically opposed to the all too common philosophy that the government should protect and support one from the cradle to the grave. The policy of the Founding Fathers has made our people and our nation strong. The opposite leads inevitably to moral decay."

"I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."

"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence...The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, and to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law."

"This country has achieved its commercial and financial supremacy under a regime of private ownership. It conquered the wilderness, built our railroads, our factories, our public utilities, gave us the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the automobile, the airplane, the radio and a higher standard of living for all the people than obtains anywhere else in the world. No great invention ever came from a government-owned industry."

"There is an important sense in which government is distinctive from administration. One is perpetual, the other is temporary and changeable. A man may be loyal to his government and yet oppose the particular principles and methods of administration."

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."

"Man will never be free until the last King is strangled with the entrails of the last Priest."

"There's no government like NO GOVERNMENT."

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."

"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations--entangling alliances with none."

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

"When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion — the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right."

"A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives."

"A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them."

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."

"Men speak of natural rights, but I challenge any one to show where in nature any rights existed or were recognized until there was established for their declaration and protection a duly promulgated body of corresponding laws."

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church."

"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the sacharrine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not recieve this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history."

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved), or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press."

"The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

"There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact."

"By the sword we seek peace, peace only under liberty"

"To sit back hoping that someday, someway, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last--but eat you he will."

America's one of the finest countries anyone ever stole.

"Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished."

The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell the truth.

"History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. "

"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."

"No undesirable behavior has ever been eliminated by passing a law against it."

"What people think is what they do. Corollary: To change what people do, change what they think."

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. "

"The taxpayers are sending congressmen on expensive trips abroad. It might be worth it except they keep coming back!"

"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent."

"I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way."

"The public good is always being served when jobs and industry are created."

"If I had to choose between sex with Kirsten Dunst or sex with a dead Filipino boy, I would at least find out what the kid died of."

"Britain has invented a new missile. It's called the civil servant - it doesn't work and it can't be fired."

"I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses."

"Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; iit is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior."

"Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself."

"If you are to stand up for your Government you must be able to stand up to your Government."

"The Vice-Presidency is sort of like the last cookie on the plate. Everybody insists he won't take it, but somebody always does."

"What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long."

"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."

"The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority."

"A race of altruists is necessarily a race of slaves. A race of free men is necessarily a race of egoists."

"People are beginning to realize that the apparatus of government is costly. But what they do not know is that the burden falls inevitably on them."

"If you have ever seen a four-year-old trying to lord it over a two-year-old, then you know what the basic problem of human nature is, and why government keeps growing larger and ever more intrusive."

"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation."

"To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt."

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."

"Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others."

"When you have robbed a man of everything, he is no longer in your power. He is free again."

"Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have."

"I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty."

"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."

"The legacy of Democrats and Republicans approaches: Libertarianism by bankruptcy."

"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river."

"It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny."

"No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots."

"Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish."

"Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. "

"One hundred RINOs do more damage than a thousand Democrats. "

"Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principles that they are laboring to dethrone: but if they argue without reason (which, in order to be consistent with themselves they must do), they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument. "

"Compassion is the use of public funds to buy votes. "

"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

"If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side."

"Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon."

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. "

"I have no respect for the passion for equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy. "

"Complete equality isn't compatible with democracy, but it is a agreeable to tolitarianism. After all the only way to ensure the equality of the slothful, the inept and the immoral is to suppress everyone else."

"You know the one thing that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to have their fair say."

"I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive."

"If a government were put in charge of the Sahara Desert, within five years, they'd have a shortage of sand."

" He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

" One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

" The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."

" I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

"Bureaucracies have a natural tendency not to cooperate, coordinate or consolidate with each other. They won't cooperate with each other, unless they are forced to do so by political level authority."

"Regulations are government embedding and marbling its way into and out of successive layers of societal activity. It is government deconstructing, rebuilding, renovating and expanding a little each day. The regulatory machinery may move a little faster or a little slower, but like rust, it never sleeps."

"It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done."

"The idea of imposing restrictions on a free economy to assure freedom of competition is like breaking a man's leg to make him run faster."

"I believe there's something out there watching over us. Unfortunately, it's the government."

"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them."

"In government, all of the incentive is in the direction of not making mistakes. You can have 99 successes and nobody notices, and one mistake and you're dead."

"An atomic energy plant can slip through parliament easily. A rug in a mayor's office, an issue everyone can understand, can tie up a municipal council for ages. The risk is asymmetric. In government, what gets you in a hassle is seldom the huge decisions that were clearly wrong, it's the little things that that were clearly trivial by comparison."

"However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class, religion, or all four. However far it may expand, the progression inevitably rests on unequal power and airtight roles within the family."

"I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-classc muscle man for Big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street..."

"We're in a bus headed off a cliff, and mostly what the two parties want to argue about is who gets to drive."

"If you rub it in, both at home and abroad, that you are ready for instant war, with every unit of your strength in the first line and waiting to be first in, and hit your enemy in the belly and kick him when he is down, and boil your prisoners in oil (if you take any), and torture his women and children, then people will keep clear of you."

"In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."

"Hierarchies make some people dependent on others, blame the dependent for their dependency, and then use that dependency as a justification for further exercise of authority."

"My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image to be servants of their human interests."

"When you argue or plead with a Politician, expecting him to suddenly become as smart as required by Law, you will have much greater Assurance in Hope and Fun watching the Melting of the Greenland Ice."

"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair."

"Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field. "

"Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last."

"It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile. "

"Squeezing our money out of politicians is more difficult than squeezing blood from a turnip. To paraphrase an Oscar Hammerstein love song, once they have found a way to take our money, they never let it go. "

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it. "

"I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous, if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men."

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. "

"Although he's regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics."

"Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party. "

"A good politician under democracy is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. "

"Diplomacy: the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a stick."

"A man that'd expict to thrain lobsters to fly in a year is called a loonytic; but a man that thinks men can be tur-rned into angels by an iliction is called a rayformer an' remains at large. "

"Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law. "

"If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states, then the juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that once was the citizen's safeguard of liberty."

"Voting is one of the few things where boycotting in protest clearly makes the problem worse rather than better. "

"A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it."

"In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant."

"Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel."

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all."

"The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club."

"When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs. When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent. When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don't own a gun. Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet."

"A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes--and it will come--may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system."

"Every law is an infraction of liberty."

"They who have reasoned ignorantly, or who have aimed at effecting their personal ends by flattering the popular feeling, have boldly affirmed that "one man is as good as another - a maxim that is true in neither nature, revealed morals, nor political theory."

"I do not like the pretensions of Government - the grounds on which it demands my obedience to be pitched too high. I don't like the medicine-man's magical pretensions nor the Bourbon's Divine Right. This is not solely because I disbelieve in magic and in Bossuet's Politique. I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands. 'Thus saith the Lord,' it lies, and lies dangerously."

"I quite agree with the Archbishop that no sin, simply as such, should be made a crime. Who the deuce are our rulers to enforce their opinions about sin on us? A lot of professional politicians, often venal time-servers, whose opinion on a moral problem in one's life we shd attach very little value to. Of course many acts which are sins against God are also injuries to our fellow-citizens, and must on that account, but only on that account, be made crimes. But of all the sins in the world I shd have thought homosexuality was the one that least concerns the State. We hear too much of the State. Government is at its best a necessary evil. Let's keep it in its place."

"When conservative judges strike down laws, it's because of what's in the Constitution. When liberal judges strike down laws, it's because of what's in The New York Times."

"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."

"It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose."

"A positive attitude will not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."

"Diversity is celebrating that people are different, while pretending not to notice any such differences."

"Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less."

"The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane."

"The plural of anecdote is not data."

"Whichever side denounces the other for politicizing the issue is losing the argument."

"Any law named after a person is bad law."

"I always vote Republican because Republicans have fewer ideas. Although, in the case of George W., not fewer enough."

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog."

"The homeless are like frilly party decorations when you want to celebrate how much America sucks."

"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals. If we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can't say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don't each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path."

"I found in traveling around the world that a great many people...apparently well educated and sophisticated, were convinced that the people of the United States were in the grip of terror and that free speech and free press no longer existed here. They believed that the United States was fomenting a third world war and would presently start it, with Armageddon consequences for everyone else, and that the government of the United States smashed without mercy anyone who dared to oppose even by oral protests this headlong rush toward disaster...These people could 'prove' their opinions by quoting any number of Americans and American newspapers and magazines. That they were able to quote such American sources proved just the opposite, namely that we do continue to enjoy free speech even to express arrant nonsense and unpopular opinion, escaped them completely."

"Wars are caused by undefended wealth."

"If people don't like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum."

"Malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man."

"Love creative work, do not seek to dominate others, and avoid intimacy with the ruling authorities."

" Anyone can be accurate and even profound, but it is damned hard work to make criticism charming."

"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

"In National Review recently, I took issue with that line Gerald Ford always uses to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences: 'A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.' Actually, you run into trouble long before that point: A government big enough to give you everything you want still isn't big enough to get you to give anything back."

"People--pardon me, journalists and politicians--have often accused me of believing that I'm above the law. And yet, who isn't? The law is created by demonstrable criminals, enforced by demonstrable criminals, interpreted by demonstrable criminals, all for demonstrably criminal purposes. Of course I'm above the law. And so are you."

"There would be NO good things for the country and the civilized world without this President's efforts."

The Three Great Economic Truths:
I. All taxes are paid by the people who cannot pass them any lower.
II. A 'benefit' is something your employer paid for with your money.
III. The price of your 'free lunch' can be found in the price of your beer."

"It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country."

"A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go. You'll just be walking down the street and...Ooohh, that's much better."

"Q: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: None: The lightbulb contains the seeds of its own revolution."

"You can fool all of the people all of the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough."

"He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career."

"Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics."

""Quis custodiet custodes?"

"'Politics' is made up of two words, 'poli,' which is Greek for 'many,' and 'tics,' which are blood-sucking insects."

"Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there."

"One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it."

"Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless."

"Mayonnaise, like hollandaise, was invented by the French to cover up the flavor of spoiled flesh, stale vegetables, rotten fish. Beware the sauce! Where food comes beslobbered with an elegant slime you may well suspect the integrity of the basic ingredients."

"Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other two lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them."

"Um, there are haunted houses. Unless you have lived in one, you don't know."

"A lot has been said about politics; some of it complimentary, but most of it accurate."

"My final point about alcohol, about drugs, about Pornography...What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see or take into my body as long as I don't harm another human being whilst on this planet? And for those of you having a little moral dilemma on how to answer this, I'll answer for you. NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS! Take that to the bank, cash it and take it on a vacation outta my fucking life."

"Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against."

"The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination."

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

And you have the right to free speech, as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it..."

"You can recognize a pioneer by the arrows in his back."

"[President Clinton] boasts about 186,000 people denied firearms under the Brady Law rules. The Brady Law has been in force for three years. In that time, they have prosecuted seven people and put three of them in prison. You know, the President has entertained more felons than that at fundraising coffees in the White House, for Pete's sake."

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."

"It's embarrassing...you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on the Best Seller's List."

"We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech."

"When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President--I'm beginning to believe it."

"Because Jefferson was a humble person, I feel a kinship with him."

"In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles."

"People in the media say they must look...at the president with a microscope. Now, I don't mind a microscope, but boy, when they use a proctoscope, that's going too far."

"If Congress were to pass a flat tax, you'd simply pay a fixed percentage of your income, and you wouldn't fill out any complicated forms, and there would be no loopholes for politically connected groups, and normal people would actually understand the tax laws, and giant talking broccoli stalks would come around and mow your lawn for free, because Congress is NOT going to pass a flat tax, you pathetic fool."

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."

"So what is government? Very simply, it is an agency of coercion. Of course, there are other agencies of coercion--such as the Mafia. So to be more precise, government is the agency of coercion that has flags in front of its offices."

"As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents."

"Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government"

"My general rule of thumb is the volume of ad hominem, begging the question and other refusals to argue the point is directly proportional to the likelihood the original argument is true...I think the mind of the liberal works this way:
1. Hear conservative assertion,
2. analyze assertion,
3. check memory for contrary information,
4. review logic of conservative assertion,
5. if no contrary information and no logical flaw in conservative assertion, then
     a. attack, insult and demean conservative
     b. re-affirm the liberal position without any additional evidence or reasoning
6. If the above logical fallacies are pointed out, use the term "racist" or "homophobe," invoke Hitler comparisons or McCarthyism, or angrily accuse conservative of preaching hate."

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

"The most important service rendered by the press is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust."

"Sex and politics are a lot alike. You don't have to be good at them to enjoy them."

"Why haven't women got labels on their foreheads saying, "Danger: Government Health Warning: Women can be dangerous to your brains, genitals, current account, confidence, razor blades and good standing among your friends."

"I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting."

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."

"See, when the government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs."

"Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying."

"Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad."

"A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."

"A thing that has always baffled me about women is that they will saturate themselves with a pint of perfume, a pound of sachet powder, an evil-smelling lip rouge, a peculiar-smelling hair ointment and a half-dozen varieties of body oils, and then have the effrontery to complain of the aroma of a fine dollar cigar."

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest."

"I won't say that the papers misquote me, but I sometimes wonder where Christianity would be today if some of those reporters had been Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."

"We are not without accomplishment. We have managed to distribute poverty equally."

"Eight more days and I can start telling the truth again."

"Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, 'Thank God, I'm still alive.' But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again."

"Given the government's record with the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs, we can assume that a War on Abortion would lead within five years to men having abortions."

"We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move."

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks."

"'Media' is the plural for 'mediocre'."

"You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'My God, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'"

"The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided."

"It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by resorting to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry."

"When my sister and I were growing up there was never any doubt in our minds that men and women were equal, if not more so."

"The road to tyranny, we must remember, begins with the destruction of the truth."

"I'm not listening to you...therefore, you made no case."

"If you don't mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream."

"The French are sawed-off sissies who eat snails and slugs and cheese that smells like people's feet. Utter cowards who force their own children to drink wine, they gibber like baboons even when you try to speak to them in their own wimpy language."

"France has neither winter, summer, nor morals - apart from these drawbacks it it a fine country."

"You can always reason with a German. You can always reason with a barnyard animal, too, for all the good it does."

"The other thing we have to do is to take seriously the role in this problem of...older men who prey on underage women...There are consequences to decisions and...one way or the other, people always wind up being held accountable."

"You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans."

"She's a wonderful, wonderful person, and we're looking to a happy and wonderful night, ah, life." - Edward "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy, about his then-fiancee, Victoria Reggie

"It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing...it's very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."

"A mere forty years ago, beach volleyball was just beginning. No bureaucrat would have invented it, and that's what freedom is all about."

"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."

"Beyond its entertainment value, Baywatch has enriched and, in many cases, helped save lives. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to continue with a project which has has such a significance for so many."

"People tell me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, his sex appeal, and his great hair. I say to them, 'How do you think I got the job?'"

"Maybe (Kerry) was hoping Saddam Hussein would lose the next Iraqi election."

"The candidates are an interesting group, with diverse opinions -- for tax cuts and against them, for NAFTA and against NAFTA, for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act, in favor of liberating Iraq and opposed to it. And that's just one senator from Massachusetts."

"[There is] no question that an admission of making false statements to government officials and interfering with the FBI and the CIA is an impeachable offense."

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."

"The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I'll walk carefully."

"For what does it profit a party to win an election but lose its soul?"

"God has already stated on numerous occasions that He is going to crush all human governments and institute His own theocratic one. I look forward to this."

"But if a person chooses to sin and it doesn't infringe on your rights, it should be legal. Meth and bisexuals infringe on all our rights."

"You know, we've had a lot of laughs tonight, but I'll tell you what's not funny: killing strippers. Strippers are people too. Naked people who may be willing to pleasure you for a price you negotiate later behind a curtain in the VIP room. Besides, there's no need to kill 'em, because most of them are already dead inside. Good night, everyone."