"I IS prophit!"
Posted on 12/29/2008 7:21:36 PM PST by Sen Jack S. Fogbound
Jefferson, in Some Cases, Could be Called a Prophet.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. -- Thomas Jefferson
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. -- Thomas Jefferson
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle, which, if acted on, would save one-half the wars of the world. -- Thomas Jefferson
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. -- Thomas Jefferson
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. -- Thomas Jefferson
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. -- Thomas Jefferson
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. -- Thomas Jefferson
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -- Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas, which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. -- Thomas Jefferson
Very Interesting Quote: In light of the present financial crisis, it's interesting to read what Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.'
An astute student of history and human nature, Thomas Jefferson, predicted what we see happening here in America. As ambassador in France, he witnessed the run up to the FIRST socialist/communist revolution there. He penned the following observations concerning what would happen HERE should that socialism come to the United States. He CORRECTLY predicted that we would become an increasingly contentious and litigious people as we shouldered one another out of the way to get OURS from the public trough and the trough would soon be empty.
He also knew where the bulk of the problem would originate.
That whirring noise you may hear coming from that mountain in Charlottesville, Virginia is Mr. Jefferson getting up to around 3600 RPM.
(A 6 minute video with this information may be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypLu49pq3bI)
“The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.” —Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIX, 1782. ME 2:230
“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.” —Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442
“I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice.” —Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173
“Our cities... exhibit specimens of London only; our country is a different nation.” —Thomas Jefferson to Andre de Daschkoff, 1809. ME 12:304
“Everyone, by his property or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs and a degree of freedom which, in the hands of the canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:401
“An insurrection... of science, talents, and courage, against rank and birth... has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty, and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will recover from the panic of this first catastrophe.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:402
“I fear nothing for our liberty from the assaults of force; but I have seen and felt much, and fear more from English books, English prejudices, English manners, and the apes, the dupes, and designs among our professional crafts. When I look around me for security against these seductions, I find it in the wide spread of our agricultural citizens, in their unsophisticated minds, their independence and their power, if called on, to crush the Humists of our cities, and to maintain the principles which severed us from England.” —Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:120
Curiously enough, the author of this quotation was a gentleman who lived off the labor of his slaves. Jefferson was many things, one of the great hypocrites of all time among them.
When I first saw this I thought it was about a congressman from Louisiana.
It's "prophet" not "profit" now that I am more focused on it.
/mark
Half of those who can vote probably have trouble spelling the word government these days because government takes care of them.
He had a profound understanding of human nature, both of the individual and of how individuals behave in groups. But at present we seem overrun by mental midgets who think they know better than Jefferson and the other founders, when in fact they know and understand little or nothing about America's success and greatness.
This fella sure sounds anti-Obama.
All profound quotes from the purest politician of that time.
If it were up to Jefferson there would have been no banking and no country as we know it today. He would have had everyone be farmers each producing to his or her own with the help of slaves. It was Hamilton’s genius that created our banking system and the greed of poor policy decisions and liberals that have put us where we are today.
If you took the perpetrators of these crimes like Madoff and hung them on the village green you might see some resemblance of the system that made us great. Without accountability the thieves will run wild.
"I IS prophit!"
I guess had he known you and your perfection he might have behaved differently. Of course, Jefferson was a Universal Man with great intellectual achievements. When Schliemann found Troy he attributed it to that eminent Archeologist Thomas Jefferson. Author, Engineers, inventor.
If only he had been as perfect as you! Phooey!!!
Only problem is that Jefferson didn't say it. It is a paraphrase of Alexis De Tocqueville
Yeah. A hypocrite. And that whole first draft of the DOI thingy, well, he really didn’t mean it. /dripping sarcasm
The only thing curious here is your arrogance at calling a Founding Father a hypocrite in the face of historical fact.
I think it ironic that the guy who invented the national survey and divided much of the US into one mile squares, and, thereby destroying the natural beauty of our continent should have made this observation. He CREATED the urban sprawl that has destroyed our natural beauty. Plus, he died broke and seriously in debt. Just like many on Wall Street today.
-BARF ALERT-
You come across as one of the great ignoramuses of all time. It's simple, the slaves were not considered to be equal to the citizens of that day. They were not considered in all the rights and liberties recognized in our original constitution and Bill of Rights.
And, surprise, slavery had been practiced since recorded history and before. Nothing unique about the fact that it was practiced in the USA. Surely you know it was practiced in Africa where American slaves came from, and that Africans owned slaves, and captured and sold slaves. Did you know that? It sounds as if you did not.
But these rights and liberties in the US Constitution had never been extended to any men, anywhere, until it was done at the founding of the US. Do you have any clue under what circumstances most lived under on this earth up until Jefferson's time?
But, try real hard here, the recognition of these rights and liberties by a government for its citizens was a remarkable achievement and step forward at that time. It gave others an example to consider, and it gave the decendents of slaves a constitution they could look to and petition that it also be applied to them.
Are you really so ignorant of history, and how freedoms have developed slowly over the centuries and millennia, that you can't see the remarkable advances that took place at the founding of the USA?
13 Oct. 1802
Works 9:398--99
You know my doubts, or rather convictions, about the unconstitutionality of the act for building piers in the Delaware, and the fears that it will lead to a bottomless expense, & to the greatest abuses. There is, however, one intention of which the act is susceptible, & which will bring it within the Constitution; and we ought always to presume that the real intention which is alone consistent with the Constitution. Altho' the power to regulate commerce does not give a power to build piers, wharves, open ports, clear the beds of rivers, dig canals, build warehouses, build manufacturing machines, set up manufactories, cultivate the earth, to all of which the power would go if it went to the first, yet a power to provide and maintain a navy, is a power to provide receptacles for it, and places to cover & preserve it. In choosing the places where this money should be laid out, I should be much disposed, as far as contracts will permit, to confine it to such place or places as the ships of war may lie at, and be protected from ice; & I should be for stating this in a message to Congress, in order to prevent the effect of the present example. This act has been built on the exercise of the power of building light houses, as a regulation of commerce. But I well remember the opposition, on this very ground, to the first act for building a light house. The utility of the thing has sanctioned the infraction. But if on that infraction we build a 2d, on that 2d a 3d, &c., any one of the powers in the Constitution may be made to comprehend every power of government.
basically a loose collection of states. that doesn't really translate to today. thankfully, alex hamilton had other, better ideas and people like washington listened.
Excuse me, but I'm trying to understand your post.
How does a survey, whether in rods, leagues or miles, destroy the "natural beauty of the continent"?
And how does a survey CREATE "urban sprawl"?
I fail to see the connection...
Wow, so Jefferson invented the city? I guess he must have been in some reincarnated form when he destroyed the natural beauty of America, since cities and urban sprawl (think open sewers) had existed for five or six thousand years, back to ancient Iraq. So, I guess Jefferson was around then, and he also must have designed Athens and Rome and all the other urban sprawls.
With a growing population, do you really think people would always live on their individual small farms? Happy I don't live in one, but large cities are, and have been a necessity for centuries.
Some here are looking really, really hard to find some spurious grounds for slamming Jefferson.
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