The Liberty Tree Lantern

·         A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.   Thomas Jefferson (Note: We do not have a democracy, we have a “republic”.  A true democracy is Socialism, at best, otherwise it is Communism.  This is where people steal money and financial “assistance” from one group of our fellow countrymen and give it to “the masses”.  Is that FREEDOM?  Is that moral?  Is that in accordance with “Natural Law” otherwise known as the Law of God?)

·         Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.  Thomas Jefferson

·         Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.  Thomas Jefferson

·         Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.  Thomas Jefferson

·         Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.  Thomas Jefferson

·         For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.  Thomas Jefferson

·         Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson  (Think about the IRS AND the force they use)

·        I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
Thomas Jefferson

·         “[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” – James Madison (speech in the House of Representatives, 10 January 1794)Reference: Elliot’s Debates

·         I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson

·         I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
Thomas Jefferson

·         I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
Thomas Jefferson

·         I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of “taking care of them”.
Thomas Jefferson

·         I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson

·         If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson

·         It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Thomas Jefferson

·         It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
Thomas Jefferson (Think about the Government “forced” Social Security and Medicare, which is about to cause a Civil / Re-Revolutionary War on us that can probably not be avoided)

·         Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
Thomas Jefferson

·         Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Thomas Jefferson

·         Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson

·         Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Thomas Jefferson

·         Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Thomas Jefferson

·         Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Thomas Jefferson

·         That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
Thomas Jefferson

·         That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part. (Meaning we all feel we are at the reins there of.  Do you feel you are controlling or at the reins of Government or do you feel that they are doing “to us” whatever they wish?)
Thomas Jefferson

·         (A Capt. Karl momentJ: The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
Thomas Jefferson

·         The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Thomas Jefferson

·         The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
Thomas Jefferson

·         The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson

·         The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
Thomas Jefferson

·         The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson

·         We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
Thomas Jefferson

·         We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country. (Here is on of the Fathers of our nation and our FREEDOM (from Government) telling us that our generation is not to bind our succeeding generation.  Consider, therefore, how contemptible the Social Security and Medicare Socialist programs are to this ideal of the foundation of our country.)
Thomas Jefferson

·         Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
Thomas Jefferson

·         When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.
Thomas Jefferson

·         When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

·         When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.  (And the “environmentalists” and our Congressmen are trying to “force us” into doing what?)
Thomas Jefferson

·         Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
Thomas Jefferson

·         Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.
Thomas Jefferson

Does the above not strongly prove that our fellow countrymen are to be at the reins of our U.S. Government, according to at least one of our Founding Fathers?  I could provide many other quotes from the balance of our Founding Fathers, of the same spirit and intent, but this is getting long enough. In future posts I will provide more of this knowledge of sure genius and insight with regards to the path of FREEDOM that we the individual citizens of this country must understand and follow if we are to hold it secure in individual liberty and prosperity.