The Philosophy of Liberty

FYI

From conservativeactionalerts.com Fellow Conservative, Center for Defense of Free Enterprise Action Fund (CDFE Action Fund) is committed to promoting American values, and their local and national ad campaigns have consistently delivered for the conservative cause. Right now they need your support to get the message out about the Democrats now taking control over what light bulbs we use!! The legislation that has passed by the Democrats raises the cost of a single light bulb to $50! This means that in the average home, an annual light bulb expense would range from $500 to $2,250!! And because they burn out and need to be replaced the cost could two to three times that basic expenditure! CDFE Action Fund is working on a campaign to help support Senator Enzi's BULB Act and urge Congress to vote for his and its companion bill in the House, H.R. 6411. We stand by CDFE Action Fund and support their efforts to end this craziness and having every part of our lives controlled by federal bureaucrats! Reach out, CDFE Action Fund needs our help! Sincerely, Tony Adkins Conservative Action Alerts Friend of Free Enterprise: Democrats in Congress passed legislation that raises the cost of a single light bulb to $50! This means that the cost to light a modest home in the U.S. would be between $500 and $2,250; and homeowners would pay that price twice, or even three times each year, as LED bulbs burn out and need to be replaced. In 2007, the Pelosi-Reid Democratic majority in Congress passed the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection and Energy Efficient Act, a law that bans traditional incandescent light bulbs by including new lighting efficiency standards that will phase out the use of 100 watt and 75 watt incandescent light bulbs, and requires the production of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), halogen and LED bulbs. The Associated Press reports that since traditional incandescent light bulbs will be banned in January, stores will begin selling expensive LED bulbs (up to $50 each), in just a few months. Why should a select few legislators in 2007 be able to tell hundreds of millions of Americans what light bulbs are best for them? Asked Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), who introduced the Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act that would restore Americans freedom to choose the type of light bulbs they want to buy for their homes and businesses. Why do we have a federal government so intent on taking away people's choices and limiting their options? It's time the federal government starts worrying less about what light bulbs people buy and more about how it's going fix the deficit. Please FAX every member of Congress to urge them to vote for Sen. Enzi's BULB Act and its companion bill in the House, H.R. 6411, so that our lives will not have to be run by federal bureaucrats or crazy environmentalists. We must ACT NOW to save our free enterprise system from the green energy advocates who believe Americans should pay $50 a light bulb for expensive LEDs or risk toxic exposure from harmful CFLs. Please include a DONATION to the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise Action Fund, so we can continue to alert Americans about politicians' schemes to dismantle the U.S. free enterprise system. If members of Congress refuse to pass Sen. Enzi's BULB Act (S.395), and its companion bill in the House, H.R. 6411 that was introduced by Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Michael Burgess (R-Texas), and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), then everyone who wants to buy and use traditional incandescent light bulbs in their homes or businesses will be forced to move to South Carolina! Since Congress in 2007 passed the federal energy law that bans the production of traditional incandescent light bulbs, legislators in South Carolina recently passed a bill that trumps the federal energy standards and will allow manufactures in South Carolina to make and sell traditional incandescent light bulbs, but they can ONLY be manufactured and purchased in South Carolina. If Congress refuses to PASS the BULB Act, then those of us who don't live in the Palmetto state will be FORCED to buy EXPENSIVE $50 LEDs or TOXIC CFLs! CFLs, a light bulb invention that was once believed to be an energy and environmental solution to America's problems, is quickly becoming a more expensive and dangerous alternative that American families cannot afford. The US News and World Report said: Consumers are rightly concerned about the toxic substance mercury that helps CFLs produce light. Energy Star, a division of the EPA, reports that if a CLF is broken inside a home or office, humans must leave the premises for three hours after removing a broken bulb. Sen. Enzi says that the EPA doesn't like the new bulbs because the amount of mercury in one bulb is enough to contaminate up-to 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels. Along with that frightening predicament, fluorescent light bulbs also emit minute particles of X-ray and other electromagnetic pollutants, including mercury, that pose potential health risks. Researchers have also determined that CFLs can cause headaches and eye strain, and can hinder productivity for those who are dyslexic or suffer from attention deficit disorders. By barring Americans from buying incandescent light bulbs in favor of CFLs, LEDs and halogen light bulbs, environmentalists said the country would reduce energy consumption by $18 billion a year, or save consumers between $80 and $180 on their electric bills each year. Environmentalists also said that banning the Thomas Edison incandescent light bulb would reduce global warming, because they claimed that one of the causes of global warming is traditional light bulbs. Please FAX every member of Congress to urge them to vote for Sen. Enzi's BULB Act and its companion bill in the House, H.R. 6411, so that our lives will not have to be run by federal bureaucrats or crazy environmentalists. We must ACT NOW to save our free enterprise system from the green energy advocates who believe Americans should pay $50 a light bulb for expensive LEDs or risk toxic exposure from harmful CFLs. Please include a DONATION to the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise Action Fund, so we can continue to alert Americans about politicians' schemes to dismantle the U.S. free enterprise system. Now, the environmentalists' story has changed! According to The Mercury News, The nation's accelerating shift from incandescent bulbs to a new generation of energy-efficient lighting is raising an environmental concern -- the release of tons of mercury every year. CFLs account for a quarter of new bulb sales and each contains up-to five milligrams of mercury, a potent neurotoxin that's on the worst-offending list of environmental contaminants. The Association of Lighting and Mercury Recyclers reports that: Demand for the bulbs is growing as federal and state mandates for energy-efficient lighting takes effect, yet only about two percent of residential consumers and one-third of businesses recycle them. If the recycling rate remains as abysmally low as it is, then there will certainly be more mercury released into the environment, said Paul Abernathy, executive director of the Napa-based recycling association. Until the public really has some kind of convenient way to take them back, it's going to be an issue. In seven months, your traditional light bulbs will be banned from store shelves! Democrats in Congress have mandated that you must give up using traditional light bulbs all because environmentalists believed that traditional light bulbs caused global warming. (Even though scientists today are telling us we are entering into a solar cooling phase that will decrease the average temperatures on Earth during the next 30- to 80-years.) As we suffer through 9 percent unemployment, this is no time to force Americans to purchase expensive LEDs, at $50 each, which can cost consumers a minimum of $500 to $2,250 three times a year, just to maintain light in their homes. From the health insurance you're allowed to have, to the car you can drive, to the light bulbs you can buy, Washington is making too many decisions that are better left to people who work for their own paychecks and earn their own living, said Rep. Barton (R-Texas). Tell Congress to vote FOR the BULB ACT, because it will save jobs, save money, and give Americans the FREEDOM to purchase the light bulbs they want. Please FAX every member of Congress to urge them to vote for Sen. Enzi's BULB Act and its companion bill in the House, H.R. 6411, so our lives do not have to be run by federal bureaucrats or environmentalists. We must ACT NOW to save our free enterprise system from the green energy advocates who believe Americans should pay $50 a light bulb for expensive LEDs or risk toxic exposure from harmful CFLs. Please include a DONATION to the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise Action Fund, so we can continue to alert Americans about politicians' schemes to dismantle the U.S. free enterprise system. In seven months, you will be required to purchase expensive LEDs at $50 each, or buy harmful CFLs that emits toxic mercury vapors. Case in point: Brandy Bridges, a resident of Ellsworth, Maine, dropped and shattered a CFL on the carpeted floor of her daughter's bedroom and wound up paying $2,000 to clean up the toxic mercury residue. Having known that CFLs are potentially hazardous, Bridges called her local Home Depot to ask for advice, and was told that since CFLs contain mercury, she should contact the Poison Control hotline. The hotline told Bridges to contact Maine's Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP sent Andrew Smith, a toxicologist, to her home to seal-off her daughter's bedroom with plastic. Smith then told Bridges that the fee to clean up the toxic mercury from the $3 CFL was $2,000. The level of mercury toxicity in Bridges' downstairs living area was safely under 300 mg/m3. However, the mercury level spiked to 1,939 mg/m3 in her daughter's bedroom. Bridges, a single mom with limited financial means, filed a claim with her homeowner's policy. The insurance company denied her claim because mercury is a pollutant that wasn't covered in her policy. Smith said he believed the contamination was localized at the spot where the bulb broke, adding that mercury is dangerous to anyone who has experienced long-term exposure to the chemical element. Now remember, the above scenario is about CFLs, the replacement to the traditional incandescent light bulb that you've used your entire life, and that will be banned from store shelves in seven months. As the world listened to eco-alarmist Al Gore's rant about traditional light bulbs being one of the sources of global warming, General Electric was applying to the U.S. Department of Energy (on Dec. 15, 1997), for an advanced waiver of domestic and foreign invention rights on CFLs under DOE Contract No. DE-FC36-97G010236, waiver W (A)-07-024, CN-0929. If Thomas Edison had been watching the stealth movement by environmentalists to ban incandescent light bulbs in favor of CFLs worldwide, he would have been doing angry cartwheels in his grave. We must ACT NOW to urge members of Congress to REPEAL the 2007 green energy benchmark that would require every American to buy expensive $50 LEDs and toxic CFLs…as safe Tom Edison light bulbs are outlawed. Most Republican Senators support Sen. Enzi's BULB Act that has 27 Republican co-sponsors. Many Democrats were cajoled into believing that the 2007 bill will eliminate many greenhouse gasses and be less harmful to the environment. However, the new LED light bulbs will cost roughly SIX TIMES the cost of the light bulbs we now use, and the toxic CFLs almost require a hazmat team to change them. Sen. Enzi said: If left alone, the best bulb will win its rightful standing in the marketplace. What a revolutionary concept. Free enterprise! Please FAX every member of Congress to urge them to vote for the BULB Act and H.R. 6411, so our lives do not have to be run by federal bureaucrats or environmentalists. We must ACT NOW to save our free enterprise system from the green energy advocates who believe Americans should pay $50 a light bulb for expensive LEDs or risk toxic exposure from harmful CFLs. Please include a DONATION to the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise Action Fund, so we can continue to alert Americans about politicians' schemes to dismantle the U.S. free enterprise system. How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb? It takes 218 in the House and 51 in the Senate.Help put an end to governmental interference in our lives! And, help put an end to Mr. Obama's interference with the Free Enterprise system! Join thousands of your fellow Americans and send faxes to every member of Congress to tell them to vote for the BULB Act! Your financial assistance to CDFE Action Fund is urgently needed now so that together we can urge members of Congress support and vote for the BULB Act. Sincerely, Ron Arnold Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise Action Fund www.cdfe.org/cdfe-action-fund P. S. Together we can urge members of Congress to pass the BULB Act that will give Americans the freedom to buy any light bulb they choose - traditional incandescent, toxic CFLs or expensive LEDs that will cost $50 each. CLICK HERE to FAX Congress to urge your representatives to vote for the BULB Act and H.R. 6411. If the BULB Act fails, then every American will be forced to buy toxic CFLs or expensive LEDs---YOU WON'T HAVE A CHOICE! Or SEND your donation to: Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise Action Fund Dept Code - 6236 12500 NE 10th Place Bellevue, WA 98005 The Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise Action Fund is a non-partisan education and advocacy organization that lobbies to influence legislation and mobilizes grassroots support for legislation that defends free enterprise. Contributions to the Action Fund are not tax deductible.

PRO-GUN RIGHTS

I am posting a really good presentation on gun rights, BUT FIRST,

a disclaimer to the song that is used in this video, The Battle Hymn of the Republic:

This song does not mean what you think it does. Here is an article to read on it. You can google to find more:

`The Battle Hymn of the Republic' What It Really Means

By Michael Dan Jones

One of the most enduring traditional American hymns and patriotic songs is Julia Ward Howe’s "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." It is a staple with many Christian church choirs and hardly a patriotic holiday passes without this song being sung and played at ceremonies nationwide. But is "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" truly appropriate for religious hymnals and patriotic ceremonies? Who was the author? What motivated and inspired her? What message was she trying to convey?

What do the words mean? What meaning do they have for us today?

The author, Julia Ward Howe, was born in 1819 in New York City. She married a prominent physician, Dr. Samuel Howe Gridley (1801-1876) in 1843 and they lived in Boston, Mass. where they raised five children. She was a much celebrated author, a tireless supporter of the anti-slavery movement, preached in Unitarian churches, and was a zealous worker for the advancement of women, prison reform, world peace and other humanitarian movements. She died 17 October 1910 at her summer home in Oak Glen, Rhode Island.

News reporters of her day delighted in describing this unusual woman. She was diminutive in stature, barely over five feet; invariably wearing a white trimmed, black dress and lace cap and had the habit of peering over her silver-rimmed glasses as she read her lecture in a crisp Boston-Yankee accent.

But her literary works had dark themes, such as murder, suicide and betrayal, perhaps reflecting her own unhappy marriage with her domineering and unfaithful husband. Her church, the Unitarian Church, although it claimed to be Christian, denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

And although she was devoted to the anti-slavery movement, like many other Nothern radicals of her time, such as Abraham Lincoln, her own words reveal her to be a hypocrite on the subject of race. Julia Ward Howe believed and wrote the "ideal negro" would be one "refined by white culture, elevated by white blood." She also wrote, "the negro among negroes, is coarse, grinning, flat-footed, thick-skulled creature, ugly as Caliban, lazy as the laziest brutes, chiefly ambitious to be of no use to any in the world. . . He must go to school to the white race and his discipline must be long and laborious." Her own disgusting words expose the kind of hypocrisy that was rampant in the abolitionist movement.

Mrs. Howe and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, were supporters of the most radical and violent wing of the anti-slavery movement. These "disunion abolitionists" wanted to tear apart the American republic of sovereign, independent states, and reconstruct it along their own radical political, cultural and religious ideals. History records only how too well they succeeded with their treason.

Her husband and her pastor, Unitarian Rev. Theodore Parker, were conspirators in the treasonous group known as "The Secret Six." These wealthy Northeasterners financially supported terrorist and murderer John Brown in his insane Harpers Ferry raid, and advocated slave rebellion that would destroy the original American republic.

Brown’s Anti-Southern terror campaign started in Kansas in the mid-1850s. There, on 23 May 1856, Brown and his murderous band descended on a settlement of Southerners at Pottawatomie Creek. They carried with them newly sharpened swords — an image that played a prominent part in Mrs. Howe’ssong. Her hero and his fellow terrorists literally hacked to death five innocent men. Northern historians try to excuse this crime by saying Brown was exacting revenge for atrocities committed by pro-slavery "Border Ruffians." This is a lie!

The first three of his victims, James P. Doyle and his sons, Drury and William, were Catholics from Tennessee who moved to Kansas to get away from slavery. They never had a thing to do with the institution. But because they spoke with a Southern drawl, and possibly because they were Catholic, Brown marched them to a clearing where their heads were split open with the sharpened swords. Drury’s arms were chopped off. Mrs. Doyle was later asked why her husband and sons had been so brutally murdered? She replied, "just we were southern people, I reckon."

The other victims of Brown’s murderous rampage were Southern settlers Allen Wilkinson, executed while his wife and children stood by in horror, and William Sherman, whose mutilated body was found floating in the creek with his left hand hanging by a strand of skin and his skull split open with "some of the brains" washed away.

When she got word of the massacre, Julia Ward Howe’s own words reveal her to have been perversely thrilled and inspired by this grisly crime. The "terrible swift sword" in her song was terrible indeed, but hardly reflecting Christian values. Mrs. Howe and Brown mutually admired one another, as their own words demonstrate. Mrs. Howe wrote Brown was "a Puritan of Puritans, forceful, concentrated, and self-contained." Brown wrote of Mrs. Howe, in a letter to a friend, that she was "a defiant little woman" and that her personality was "all flash and fire." After the failure of Brown’s bloody raid on Harpers Ferry, her husband, who was deeply involved in the treasonous conspiracy, like a coward in the night, fled to Canada until he was assured he was safe from prosecution in Massachusetts.

Mrs. Howe, in a letter to her sister at the time, made it clear she was in complete sympathy with the attempt to start a slave rebellion in the South, and tear the nation apart. She wrote, "I have just been to church and hear [James Freeman] Clarke [another Unitarian minister] preach about John Brown, whom God bless, and will bless! I am much too dull to write anything good about him, but shall say something at the end of my book on Cuba, whereof I am at present correcting the proof-sheets. I went to see his poor wife, who passed through here some days since. We shed tears together and embraced at parting, poor soul. . . .[Brown’s] attempt I must judge insane but the spirit heroic. I should be glad to be as sure of heaven as that old man may be, following right in the spirit and footsteps of the old martyrs, girding on his sword for the weak and oppressed. His death will be holy and glorious—the new saint awaiting his martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer [execution], will make the gallows glorious like the cross."

What "martyrs" could Mrs. Howe have been speaking of in her letter? Surely she could not mean the early Christian martyrs who were slain in many perverse, cruel and cold-blooded ways by the ancient Romans, just as her hero, John Brown, slew the Southern martyrs in Kansas. Her fascination with his sword is also revealed in the letter. This grotesque and warped view of Christian values is reflected in her violent and bloody war song.

Here we have the author of the much revered "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" condoning murder and treason by a ruthless and brutal killer. Her dark fascination with Brown’s bloody sword and the killer’s unbridled violence seemed to thrill the diminutive author. Clearly, the seeds of inspiration for her "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" had been planted in the poisonous soil of murder, rebellion and treason.

But what was the final inspiration for the famous lyrics? In November 1861, after the start of the tragic war the Howe’s had for so long worked to instigate, a party which included the Unitarian Rev. James F. Clarke and Mrs. Howe, visited an outpost of the invading Union troops in Northern Virginia. However an unexpected Confederate attack canceled the review. Mrs. Howe and her party were waiting in a

buggy while Northern troops came marching by, returning from the skirmish. The camp visitors heard the Yankees merrily singing an obscene version of "John Brown’s Body."

When the party returned to Washington D.C., the Rev. Clarke asked Mrs. Howe if she could supply more dignified words for the popular tune. So, inspired by the memory of her late, "martyred hero," John Brown, and the skirmish that so rudely interrupted her review of her beloved invading Northern vandals, she wrote the words for the famous Anti-Southern abolitionist anthem, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," by candlelight in the middle of the night at the Willard Hotel.

James T. Fields, the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, accepted the song and published it as a poem in the February 1862 issue. This bloody, hate-filled, song has been marching on ever since. The "hymn," sung by so many church and school choirs, was inspired not by the Bible or a stirring religious sermon, but by a dastardly killer, John Brown, and by the march of Northern invaders trampling over Southern soil, Southern lives and Southern rights in quest of subjugating or killing the Southern people.

And what horrible crime was the South guilty of to warrant its extermination?

The people of the South were guilty of only wanting independence for a government of their own choosing, a pro-Christian, God-based government that safeguarded states’ rights, individual liberty and put strict limits on the national government. This was was the type of government the founders established in 1776, and the South was trying to preserve it as handed to them.

It was Abraham Lincoln, who is said to have cried the first time he heard the abolitionist war song, and radicals like Mrs. Howe who were the real revolutionaries. It was their forces who, by brute force of arms, destroyed the original voluntary union of sovereign, independent states at the cost of 620,000 dead Americans, and changed the nation into an involuntary union of defeated, militarily occupied, captive states.

In 1863, Mrs. Howe recited "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" at a gathering of fanatical abolitionists. One of those who saw and heard her, commented, she had a "weird, penetrating voice." Considering the bloody, ungodly history of her war song, what a chilling experience that must have been.

In summary, here is a "hymn" celebrating celebrating the killing of Southerners on Southern soil, written by someone involved in the most radical causes of her day, who supported the most extreme and violent response to the South, who wrote the song after being inspired by the murderous career of John Brown and her Northern vandal invaders of the South. Whenever "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is played, five innocent men hacked to death by the "terrible swift sword" of John Brown should be remembered. It is also a dirge for the 620,000 Americans who died in the War for Southern Independence and which war transformed America into a despotic centralized state with practically unlimited powers

What meaning does the song have for the South today?

It is, in effect, a "stealth" heritage attack. It is conditioning Southerners to accept the Yankee myth of history that their ancestor’s were wrong, and their Northern "betters" were right and they should be glad 260,000 Southrons were slaughtered in the War for Southern Independence. The message of the song is, "Believe in Mrs. Howe’s almighty centralized government to tell you what is right and what is wrong." Don’t listen to the founders of 1776 or 1861, is the message of this hymn. Yes, Mrs. Howe’s abolitionist hymn is still doing her work, quietly and covertly, of destroying Southern heritage by conditioning Southerners to accept her fanatically leftist cultural and religious philosophy.

How ironic that such a joyous traditional Southern song as "Dixie" is now all but banned throughout the South, while a vicious Anti-Southern war song such as "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is sung in churches and patriotic ceremonies all over the Confederate states.

What meaning does it have for the Church?

Did Jesus Christ teach that God is a vengeance seeking, sword-wielding maniac that slaughters innocents and tramples people under His wrathful feet, as Mrs. Howe’s violent and bloody lyrics would have you believe? No, such lyrics don’t fit in with any Christian liturgy I’m familiar with. They do fit in the theology of radical egalitarianism which says everyone must be equal in all aspects of life, or the full force and power of the federal government will destroy you. It also fits in the philosophy of giving to the government god-like powers to declare a whole segments of humanity as nonpersons, such as the unborn, who can then be legally slaughtered by the millions at the whim of the mother and abortionist.

If Americans truly care about individual liberty, limited, constitutional government, and the sacred right of self-government of the people in their states assembled, then all such false icons as "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" must be exposed and rejected.

For further reading, I suggest: "The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown," by Edward J. Reunion Jr. (New York, 1995); "The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolitionist Movement" by Otto Scott (Murphy, Calf., 1993); "The Singing Sixties: The Spirit of the Civil War Days Drawn from the Music of the Times" by Willard A and Porter W. Heaps (Norman, Okra., 1960); "Notable American Women 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary" Vol. 11, Article on Julia War Howe, (Cambridge, Mass.); and "The Encyclopedia of Religion" Vol. 15&16, Article on Unitarians, (New York, 1995).

Now for the presentation:

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Firearms

View more presentations from GeorgeCastonguay.

A SPEECH FROM RONALD REAGAN

Socialism is not the answer.

This is a speech on ECONOMIC FREEDOM that Ronald Reagan gave when he was Governor of California.

Hillsdale College, Nov. 10, 1977:


You know, I say I'm delighted to be here 
and yet I have an uncomfortable feeling 
that I'm saving souls in heaven. You don’t 
need the convincing that I usually try to do 
when I'm speaking on this subject. …
But, if I can’t save your souls, at least 
perhaps I might impart some information
here that'll be helpful to you in the
 communication that has to take place.

In 
the campaign last year, there was a great deal of talk about the seeming inability of an economic system that has provided more for more people than anything we've ever known to solve the problems of unemployment and inflation. Issues such as taxes and government power and cost were discussed.

But always these things were discussed in the context of "What did government intend to do about them?" Well, may I suggest for your consideration that government has already done too much about them—that, indeed, by government going outside its proper province has caused many, if not most, the problems that vex us. …

At the economic conference in London several months ago, one of our American representatives there was talking to the press. And he said, "You have to recognize that inflation doesn't have any single cause. It's caused by a number of things, and therefore there is no single answer." Well, if he believed that, he had no business being at an economic conference. Inflation is caused by one thing, and it has one answer. It's caused by government spending more than government takes in, and it will go away when government stops doing that, and not before. …

I know that this is called the "Ludwig von Mises Series." But do you know that before I knew that I had a line that I intended to give you? It's a quote of his, if you haven't heard it. Ludwig von Mises said, "Government is the only agency that can take a perfectly useful commodity like paper, smear it with some ink and render it absolutely useless."

Sometimes I think that government fits that old-fashioned definition of a baby: An alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

There are 73 million of us working and earning in the private sector. We support ourselves and our dependents. We support, in addition, 81 million other Americans totally dependent on tax dollars for their year-round living. Now it's true that 15 million of those are public employees and they also pay taxes, but their taxes are simply a return to government of dollars that first had to be taken from the 73 million. I say this to emphasize that the people working and earning in the private sector are the only resource that government has. …

And yet even among us who perhaps believe that way, we have fallen into the habit of when something goes wrong— that saying, "There ought to be a law." Sometimes I think there ought to be a law against saying "there ought to be a law." A German statesman, Bismarck, said, "If you like sausages and laws, you should never watch either one of them being made."

It's difficult to understand the ever increasing number of intellectuals and he goals of academia—present company excepted—who contend that our system could be improved by the adoption of some of the features of socialism. It isn't that these eminent scholars are ignorant; it's just that they know a number of things that aren't true. …

But we're so used to talking billions. Does anyone realize how much a single billion is? A billion minutes ago Christ was walking on this earth. A billion hours ago our ancestors lived in caves, and it's questionable as to whether they'd discovered the use of fire. A billion dollars ago was 19 hours in Washington, D.C. And it'll be another billion in the next 19 hours, and every 19 hours until they adopt a new budget at which time it'll be almost a billion and a half. But let me really paint the picture for you. If you gentlemen sent your wives out on a shopping spree and gave them each a billion dollars and told them not to spend more than a thousand dollars a day, they won’t be home for 3,000 years.

But, you know, if you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom, all freedom. Freedom is something that cannot be passed on in the blood stream or genetically. And it's never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it's gone and gone for a long, long time. …

(I might add that the same goes for Christianity; Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it's gone and gone for a long, long time)

You know, it has been said that politics is the second-oldest profession, and I've come to realize over the last few years, it bears a great similarity to the first. …

It's time we recognized that the system, no matter what our problems are, has never failed us once. Every time we have failed the system, usually by lacking faith in it, usually by saying we have to change and do something else. •