I agree with Republicans. Let's get back to the Founder's ideas.

[white_wolf]

Let's start with Jefferson. "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."

"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."



"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

"I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did."

Let's move onto Paine:

"Pay as a remission of taxes to every poor family, out of the surplus taxes, and in room of poor-rates, four pounds a year for every child under fourteen years of age."

"It is painful to see old age working itself to death, in what are called civilised countries, for daily bread... pay to every such person of the age of fifty years ... the sum of six pounds per annum out of the surplus taxes, and ten pounds per annum during life after the age of sixty... This support, as already remarked, is not of the nature of a charity but of a right."

"There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it"

"Create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property."

"It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man."

"Of all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst. Every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in, but this attempts a stride beyond the grave and seeks to pursue us into eternity."

"The story of the redemption will not stand examination. That man should redeem himself from the sin of eating an apple by committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of religion ever set up."

“It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes”

“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity"

Now for Franklin

"The Way to see by Faith, is to shut the Eye of Reason"

"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies."

[larwdem]

1. agree

:kick:

[provis99]

2. good stuff. I think I'll copy and paste it.

There are two sets of Founders: the real ones, and the ones that Republicans imagine to have existed.

[RainDog]

3. k&r n/t

[Warrior Dash]

4. I agree with Jefferson, not the Republicans....

The right of self-government does not comprehend the government of others.

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.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

[BeFree]

5. ""Off with their heads""

Said the king. And the government tried to deliver. But failed.

[napoleon_in_rags]

6. That second to last quote is the best.

That's what never made sense to me about Theocrats: Who wants to worship a God that requires taxpayer subsidies?

[rurallib]

7. May I shamelessly steal this for a blog post next week?

Excellent job

You will of course get full credit. This is good.

[white_wolf]

8. Sure.

All I really did was point out republican hypocrisy and let the Founder's speak for themselves. The internet makes destroying republican logic easy.

[rurallib]

10. Thank you

I get lazy

[Sirveri]

9. 15 pounds sterling = 9600$ (with silver @ 40$/ounce)

Silver fell a few months back, but that's the last number I remember when I ordered sterling silver wire.

[14thColony]

11. Another Benjamin Franklin one I like:

"Lighthouses are more useful than churches."