As I write this blog, my country is celebrating it's 236th birthday. Happy birthday America! We celebrate today with parades, bar-b-ques and fireworks. Maybe a patriotic song or two tossed in for good measure.
Today I find myself reflecting on what today is. Today is the day we celebrate the treason 56 men bravely committed by signing the Declaration of Independence. If we had not won the war against Britain, these men would have been hung for their crimes against the crown. Benjamin Franklin is famously quoted as saying "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately"
It is in this reflective mindset I would like to share some quote and thoughts on government, freedom and independence.
However
[political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in
the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning,
ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the
people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying
afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address,
Sep. 17, 1796
Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government - James Madison
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
"If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.” – Thomas Jefferson
Until Tomorrow - Melissa
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