Posted on 05/25/2013 9:38:22 AM PDT by Lakeshark
Those who, like John McCain, have held "office" in government for extended periods become too occupied with the trappings and habits of office than with the great principles of freedom their "office" was designed to protect and defend.
Note, please, Edmund Burke on the effect of "office" on a government official:
". . . it may be truly said, that men too much conversant with office are rarely minds of remarkable enlargement. Their habits of office are apt to give them a turn to think the substance of business not to be much more important than the forms in which it is conducted. These forms are adapted to ordinary occasions; and therefore persons who are nurtured in office do admirably well as long as things go on in their common order; but when the high roads are broken up, and the waters out, when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no precedent, then it is that a greater knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive comprehension of things, is requisite, than ever office gave, or than office can ever give." - Speech of Edmund Burke, Esq., on American Taxation April 19, 1774 [Second Edition. Dodsley, 1775.] here.
Now that a new generation of thinkers, men and women who have utilized new technologies to read the great literature of liberty surrounding the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the framing of "the People's" Constitution for limiting their government, the old guard, like McCain, who merely sought "office" and perpetuated themselves in that office are understandably without a clue as to how to respond to discussions of principles and ideas.
It is up to us, the citizens of America, to join the new guard who understand that there are ideas too essential to liberty to be traded away in the kind of "habits of office" (Burke) McCain refers to in his sniping, ". . . maybe the senator from Utah ought to learn a little bit more about how business has been done in the Congress of the United States.”
Now, "when the high roads are broken up, and the waters out, when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no precedent," is the time for statesmen whose minds are focused on first principles and how to preserve liberty for future generations.
Senators Lee and Cruz, please attend to Burke's wisdom, for it is high time for "a greater knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive comprehension of things. . . than ever office gave, or than office can ever give." McCain's focus on a "legacy" for this Congress and for President Obama reflects a small mind focused on "office"--not a "greater knowledge" of the sad history of civilization's struggle for liberty.
"...nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society." - John Adams
"Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it." - John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, 1777
"[Our Departed Ancestors] task (and nobly they performed it) [was] to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation, to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform. How then shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." - Abraham Lincoln, January 27, 1838
May I throw McCain in the dumpster?
“McCain and his allies and Cruz and his cohorts”
I love the old guard unbiased media. /snarky sarcasm
Every last one of them should be condemned and ashamed, they deserve to be the first to be ruined by this administration, unfortunately, it will be all of us.
You have my blessing.
:-)
Good post.
100% agree. The term RINO implies that the rest if the party is good and that the folks labeled as RINOs are outliers. Like it or not, the GOP is the party of Boehnor, McCain, Graham, Romney, Priebus, et al.
I give Rubio The Fraud two days before he crawls back into his warm place of comfort between McCain and Schumer.
Goldwater’s disappointments far outweigh his early assets.
I took the 12 minutes to watch the video and was, not for the first time, impressed with Ted Cruz. He took it to McCain on the senate floor. Cruz clearly outlined his opposition to McCains position on the debt ceiling procedure and called him out on McCain’s derisive ‘wacko birds’ comment (for which McCain later apologized). The man seems genuine and so, a welcome sight as long as he can maintain his integrity and not be co-opted by the GOP senate honchos or fatally smeared by the left who will certainly make Ted Cruz their next target as their Alinsky handbook would dictate.
Juan sucks, as always.
Same for the House. Boner is the sum of his weakness and a about as useful as a plugged toilet.
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