Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Libloather; All
Just an example of what happens when the reins of government are turned over, by "We, the People," to so-called "progressives," whose ideology permits violations of the individual rights of individuals--actions which violate the very spirit and heart of the U. S. Constitution's protections for those rights, according to the prolific writings of the men who framed it and those who ratified it:
"If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means – to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retributions." - Justice Louis Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead et al. v. United States, 277 U.S. 485 (1928)

"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives." - Tolstoy

"But how is ... legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not 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 this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals." - Frédéric Bastiat

"The person who used political power to force others to conform to his ideas seems inevitably to become corrupted by the power he holds. In due course he comes to believe that power and wisdom are the same thing and, since he has power, he must also have wisdom. At this point he begins to lose his ability to distinguish between what is morally right and what is politically expedient." - Ben Moreell

"But how is ... legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not 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 this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals." - Frédéric Bastiat

"The person who used political power to force others to conform to his ideas seems inevitably to become corrupted by the power he holds. In due course he comes to believe that power and wisdom are the same thing and, since he has power, he must also have wisdom. At this point he begins to lose his ability to distinguish between what is morally right and what is politically expedient." - Ben Moreell - (See more Moreel here, as he compares America's decline to that of Rome in "Bread and Circuses.")

"Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age, by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world?" - Thomas Paine

"Painful as it may be to hear it, there's nothing special about the people of this country that sets them apart from the other people of the world. It is the Bill of Rights, and only the Bill of Rights, that keeps us from becoming the world's biggest banana republic. The moment we forget that, the American Dream is over." - Alexander Hope, "Looking Forward"


18 posted on 12/25/2013 10:21:46 AM PST by loveliberty2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: loveliberty2

The very fact that the founders anticipated these troubles, should be evidence of the genius of the original system.


24 posted on 12/25/2013 1:08:44 PM PST by Scrambler Bob ( Concerning bo -- that refers to the president. If I capitalize it, I mean the dog.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson