General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations"
--Thomas Jefferson
Oh well... Happy Independence Day!
MrSlayer
(22,143 posts)Sorry TJ.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt all had to fight the battle in their day. Giving up is embracing serfdom. Each generation makes its choice how to handle forces that outlast governments.
white_wolf
(6,238 posts)tritsofme
(17,320 posts)The quote is genuine. Though he probably used "corporation" with a bit of a different meaning than we do today.
white_wolf
(6,238 posts)It proves it is false, however it does reference this real quote by Jefferson:
"a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and monied incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry"
Now that is a real quote of Jefferson and just as damming to the right-wing cause.
Link: http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/end-democracyquotation
tritsofme
(17,320 posts)Go read the original if you like:
I received your favor of Oct. 16, at this place, where I pass much of my time, very distant from Monticello. I am quite astonished at the idea which seems to have got abroad; that I propose publishing something on the subject of religion, and this is said to have arisen from a letter of mine to my friend Charles Thompson, in which certainly there is no trace of such an idea. When we see religion split into so many thousand of sects, and I may say Christianity itself divided into its thousands also, who are disputing, anathematizing and where the laws permit burning and torturing one another for abstractions which no one of them understand, and which are indeed beyond the comprehension of the human mind, into which of the chambers of this Bedlam would a [torn] man wish to thrust himself. The sum of all religion as expressed by its best preacher, fear god and love thy neighbor contains no mystery, needs no explanation. But this wont do. It gives no scope to make dupes; priests could not live by it. Your idea of the moral obligations of governments are perfectly correct. The man who is dishonest as a statesman would be a dishonest man in any station. It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately. It is a great consolation to me that our government, as it cherishes most its duties to its own citizens, so is it the most exact in its moral conduct towards other nations. I do not believe that in the four administrations which have taken place, there has been a single instance of departure from good faith towards other nations. We may sometimes have mistaken our rights, or made an erroneous estimate of the actions of others, but no voluntary wrong can be imputed to us. In this respect England exhibits the most remarkable phaenomenon in the universe in the contrast between the profligacy of its government and the probity of its citizens. And accordingly it is now exhibiting an example of the truth of the maxim that virtue & interest are inseparable. It ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of its people, but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe. I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. Present me respectfully to Mrs. Logan and accept yourself my friendly and respectful salutations.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=808&chapter=88352&layout=html&Itemid=27
white_wolf
(6,238 posts)Sorry if I offended. I don't know why I kept reading it the way I did, again sorry. Thanks for the correction, I appreciate it.
eppur_se_muova
(36,227 posts)I am suddenly all overcome with the vapors. :faint:
DebJ
(7,699 posts)Kennah
(14,115 posts)"I hope we shall ... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Now those money'd corporations not only have their money, their aristocratic status -- but unrestricted "speech" meaning unrestricted influence in our elections.
Corporations are essentially, basically, predestined to be -- sociopaths.
pscot
(21,023 posts)They will kill to get what they want. And a corporate government is a psychopathic government.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)Happy 4th all.
DebJ
(7,699 posts)Gman
(24,780 posts)99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)When I first read this quote, while during my university studies, it blew my
mind and broke my heart, that we ignored him as well as Jefferson.
"The manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and then debases the
men who service it, and then abandons them to be supported by the Charity of the
public. ... The friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this
direction; for it ever a permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again
penetrate into the world, it may be predicted that this is the gate by which they
will enter". ~Alexis de Tocqueville (1832)
moondust
(19,917 posts)Somebody along the way blew it pretty bad.
Raine
(30,540 posts)certainly needs to be crushed the hell to death.
tex-wyo-dem
(3,190 posts)We kind of blew this one...
#occupy