Someone posting to the atgeist.joke web site aptly quoted Ben Franklin. Since I think Ben was probably the most intelligent of the framers I'm posting some more appropriate quotes from him.
There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.
Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
When you're finished changing, you're finished.
A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
God works wonders now and then; Behold a lawyer, an honest man.
I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
Ben Franklin
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2 comments:
Here's my favorite Ben Franklin quote:
'Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
On another note- are you genuinely in fear of reprisals? As you know, I use my real name on everything I do, and the info's in the book. I've stirred quite a few bowls of puddin' here in Fishers, and while I get a few hang-up phone calls and a lot of cuss-outs on the home voice mail, I have never felt fear for my safety, or my family's.
The reason I ask is that what you express in your blog header has been expressed to me by others in a variety of local political issues. I have heard many times that folks will vote for me, but won't take a yard sign or donate more than $99 so that they might remain anonymous. Dean Barkley encountered this frequently when he ran for mayor of Carmel in 2003.
I'm a little stumped. Sure, the GOP isn't used to opposition here in Hamilton County, and they have often reacted badly to it, but so what? Why a fear to associate one's name? It is the one thing that gives power to any movement. It is why John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence with a flourish. That was certainly more dire. The Signers were committing high treason and stood to hang.
I think that the kind of people fighting the geist annexation are the type that would stop at nothing to silence any opposing viewpoints. My attempts to activate an honest debate on the atgeist.joke web site were met with censorship and genuinely mean responses.
If this were the Declaration of Independence we were talking about or if we were living in the 18th century (I'm sure that I could hold my own with a rapier or a muzzle loading pistol in a duel) I would use my real name. This little battle isn't worth getting mucky over. The geist kids will get over their tantrum soon and JQFR will fade into the sunset.
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