QUOTES FOR THE WEEK, JUNE 30, 2013

"If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence." . . . Thomas Jefferson . . .

"I often note with equal pleasure that God gave this one connected country to one united people -- a people descended from the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in manners and customs, who by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side through a long bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence." . . . John Jay, Federalist No. 2, 1787 . . .

"There is a place for government in the affairs of men, and our Declaration of Independence tells us precisely what that place is. The role of government is to protect individuals in their God-given individual rights. Freedom is the natural birthright of man, but all that government can do in behalf of freedom is to let the individual alone, and it should secure him in his rights by making others let him alone." . . . Rev. Edmund A. Opitz – The Libertarian Theology of Freedom (1999) . . .

"I heartily accept the motto, ‘The government is best which governs least,' and I should like to see it acted upon more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe: ‘That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have." . . . American author Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) . . .　

"Thoreau believed there was a moral imperative to mind one's own business. ... He insisted that to achieve human dignity, people must take responsibility for their lives and maintain independence, which is undermined by government handouts." . . . author Jim Powell - The Triumph of Liberty . . .

We are acting out, in Iraq and Afghanistan, ideologies that trace back to the universalization of the American creed. We pronounced, in the Declaration of Independence, ideals we conceived of as universally appealing, but which no one had the least intention of exporting beyond the boundaries of the newly independent country. . . . William F. Buckley (1925-2008) . . .

"But if we are to be told by a foreign Power... what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little." . . . George Washington . . .

"Pay attention and listen to the sayings of the wise; apply your heart to what they teach ...". . . King Solomon (Proverbs 22: 17) . . .

"In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man—these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We cannot continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth and their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress." . . . 30th President Calvin Coolidge (1887-1933) . . .

"A republic, if you can keep it." . . . Benjamin Franklin (1787; outside Philadelphia's Independence Hall when asked "What type of government have you given us?") . . .

"The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given. It will come when Americans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution and restore the Republic." . . . Senator Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) . . .