Posted on 01/15/2002 12:42:47 PM PST by Askel5
Perhaps Mr. Martin has never heard of the war on drugs. If the cops even SUSPECT your property or money was linked to illegal drugs, they can seize every last cent, not charge you with anything, and force YOU to sue to get it back.
Yes, you're mean :)
Btw, Vlad is on his way to Warsaw Sheraton as we speak. 200 politicos, 80 SS and agenda like from here to there.
I haven't ever seen that one. What's the source?
Ron Paul's Fan is right.
It is, after all, the "American Way" to be Number One.
(... and all that suggests to the average Koestler fan now that it's we who'll decree darkness at noon.)
Chided by the Russkis for disrespecting liberty. OUCH!
Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desire-able? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned: yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free inquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves. But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. "No two, say I, have established the same." Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments? Our sister states of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment at all. The experiment was new and doubtful when they made it. It has answered beyond conception. They flourish infinitely. Religion is well supported; of various kinds indeed, but all good enough; all sufficient to preserve peace and order; or if a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play, and reasons and laughs it out of doors, without suffering the state to be troubled with it. They do not hang more malefactors than we do. They are not more disturbed with religious dissentions. On the contrary, their harmony is unparalleled, and can be ascribed to nothing but their unbounded tolerance, because there is no other circumstance in which they differ from every nation on earth. They have made the happy discovery, that the way to silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them. Let us too give this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical laws. It is true we are as yet secured against them by the spirit of the times. I doubt whether the people of this country would suffer an execution for heresy, or a three years imprisonment for not comprehending the mysteries of the trinity. But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecuter, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shah revive or expire in a convulsion.
Having subverted us for nearly a century they're not EXPERT in precisely what is and is not "unAmerican"?
That's the point of printing this, guy. It's an easy out: Traitor! Writing for a commie rag! Hitting when we're down!
But he's absolutely correct and I do have to hand it to the Russians (even the dead-eyed leninists running their government). They certainly have a most wry sense of humor.
Makes me think of the way "former" GRU/KGB Putin likes to work in Kissinger's comment whenever he can -- autobiography, NYT "as if it was yesterday!": All the decent people get their start in intelligence.
Yeah you right. Exactly our experience here, as a matter of fact, given the absolute faith we have in certain of our political patriarchs.
Thus the ensuing and inevitable economic downturn and its consequences, such as an increase in civil strife and political tension that will result from this legislation, can be more easily handled by law enforcement.
Wonder if the Vatican's watching.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.