Posted on 03/03/2007 7:08:38 AM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance
If we wish to be free--if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but 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 hath placed in our power. The 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. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. -- Patrick Henry
....You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin -- just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this -- this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits -- not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty." You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. . . -- Ronald Reagan in Oct. 1964
"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right." -- Martin Luther King Jr.
A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is no neutral ground in the universe--every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. -- C.S. Lewis
A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, are incompatible with freedom. --Patrick Henry
The great achievement of Western culture since the Enlightenment is to make many of us peer over the wall and grant some respect to people outside it; the great failure of Western Culture is to deny that walls are inevitable or important. -- James Q. Wilson
The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles. -- Ayn Rand
Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments. -- Charles Carroll
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. -- Benjamin Franklin
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other. -- President John Adams
The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families...How is it possible that children can have any just sense of the sacred obligations of morality or religion if, from their earliest infancy, they learn their mothers live in habitual infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant infidelity to their mothers? -- John Adams
When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned. There is no such thing as a no-man's land between honesty and dishonesty. Our strength lies in spiritual concepts. It lies in public sensitiveness to evil. Our greatest danger is not from invasion by foreign armies. Our dangers are that we may commit suicide from within by complaisance with evil, or by public tolerance of scandalous behavior. -- President Herbert Hoover
Virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered. -- Patrick Henry
Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. -- Patrick Henry
A politician is concerned about the next election. A statesman is concerned about the next generation. -- unknown
We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments. -- James Madison
...Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports...And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion...Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education--reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.... -- from George Washington's Farewell Address
We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments. - James Madison
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faith have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here...The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed.... -- Patrick Henry
We have appointed a continental fast. Millions will be upon their knees at once before their great Creator, imploring His forgiveness and blessing; His smiles on American councils and arms. -- John Adams
If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it? -- Ben Franklin
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. -- Frederic Bastiat
The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. - John F. Kennedy
Important principles may and must be inflexible. -- Abraham Lincoln
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. -- Barry Goldwater
Liberals lie at the premise, accept their premise and you can only lose the argument -- unknown
Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God. -- G. K. Chesterton
War is not 'the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you. -- G. K. Chesterton
There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions. -- G. K. Chesterton
The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden. - G. K. Chesterton
These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own. -- G. K. Chesterton
Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable. -- G. K. Chesterton
Nice list
Thanks. Wish *I'd* said it! ;^)
Well - bump !!!
We are starving for good leaders with integrity & character, those who espouse morality and principles that honor and respect others. Good public role models for our children are sorely lacking in our self absorbed society. If we don't get back to this - we are finished.
"This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite, in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves" - Reagan October 27, 1964
So far have the Dhimmicrats fallen. I would add... that those 'God-given rights' exist only for those who will fight to retain them.
"Our enemies may be irrational, even outright insane, driven by nationalism, religion, ethnicity or ideology. They do not fear the United States for its diplomatic skills or the number of automobiles and software programs it produces. They respect only the firepower of our tanks, planes and helicopter gunships." -- Ronald Reagan
Bump
ping
bump for later reading on litmus test stuff
Good job...thanks!!!
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