Maggie's Farm

The American is the Englishman left to himself.

Alexis de Tocqueville, in a piece about de Tocqueville at Chicago Boyz

"Pleasing your enemies does not turn them into friends."

Who knows who first stated this ancient truism, but I snipped it from Kate.

 

An education is like exhibiting good manners. If you pretend to have them, it's the same as having them.

Sippican

'Liar' is just as ugly a word as 'thief,' because it implies the presence of just as ugly a sin in one case as in the other. If a man lies under oath or procures the lie of another under oath, if he perjures himself or suborns perjury, he is guilty under the statute law.

Under the higher law, under the great law of morality and righteousness, he is precisely as guilty if, instead of lying in a court, he lies in a newspaper or on the stump; and in all probability, the evil effects of his conduct are infinitely more widespread and more pernicious.

Teddy Roosevelt.

It reminds me that Dr. Bliss says "Lying is worse than theft of property, because it is the theft of somebody's reality."

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money - only for wanting to keep your own money."

Joseph Sobran

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."

Samuel Adams (Image is Copley's 1772 portrait of the firebrand rabble-rouser and tea-partyer)

Amendment 1

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

How complicated is that? How did this simple sentence confuse four members of the US Supreme Court? (Not that such an amendment should be needed, since the power to make laws regarding these things is not granted our federal government anyway. We believe, as Coyote might also, that laws regulating the political speech of non-profits are just as unconstitutional as other speech-control laws.)

Addendum: Many, or most, governments in the world hate free speech.

It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, January 8, 1789, as quoted in the WSJ's Boston Tea Party this morning.

"One of life's greatest mysteries is how the boy who wasn't good enough to marry your daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world."

Jewish proverb

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.

Anon, via Theo

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Anon, from Theo's old farmer quotes. Ain't that the truth.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

Anon., from Theo's Old Farmer quotes

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Anon. (h/t, a collection of good farmer quotes at Theo)

"If the government doesn't trust the people, why doesn't it dissolve them and elect a new people?"

Berthold Brecht, speculatively attributed to H.L. Mencken at a good post at Big Lizards

...my friend saw a leaf floating down from a tree in a peculiar swirling pattern. He then asked, "Dr. Einstein, why is the leaf falling from the tree like that rather than straight down?" Einstein replied with a smile, "I don't know."

Via a piece at Am Thinker by Lauri Regan. I find "I don't know" to be one of the most useful sentences in the English language.

 If there was no Internets, I'd have to stand on the overpass and yell at cars.

Sippican, who recommends The Colorist to us. Wonderful pictures.

To Change One’s Life:

1. Start immediately.

2. Do it flamboyantly.

3. No exceptions.

- William James (h/t, Protein). Sounds like a recipe for disaster for 99%.

Here's another, h/t Vermont Tiger:

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.

- Mark Twain

"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia."

George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788. h/t, Patriot Post

I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on virtually everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club. Santa Claus is another matter. He’s cute. He is nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.

PJ O'Rourke. Parliament of Whores. h/t, Samiz

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."

Thomas Jefferson

The Retriever contemplates that good quote.

George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

"The makers of the Constitution conferred, as against the government, the Right to be left alone; the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men.”

United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States (1928). h/t, reader.

"People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything."

Thomas Sowell, via Dr. Sanity's One Big Fathead

"Some of the Great Goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss."

Isaiah Berlin, from Isaiah Berlin, Beyond the Wit at Chronicle. I would have said "does," not "may."

The Dems are the fast road to Socialism and the Republicans are the slow road to Socialism.

Many people say this, but heard most recently from my son and one of my daughters (the Ron Paul one at Kenyon - not the McCain one in NYC). We observed during our drives yesterday, with irony, that the only reason China has been able to slowly, step-wise get rid of Socialism is by having an authoritarian, police-state government. Places like France, England, and Germany will never be able to do that, with so many people sucking on the government teats. They are screwed economically, spiritually, and humanly. Their people with verve and ambition still come to America...for now.

Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. … Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the "new, wonderful good society" which shall now be Rome’s, interpreted to mean "more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) h/t, reader.

Hebrews 12: 1-3

¹Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

 ²Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

 ³For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

Isn't accusing Muslims of homophobia a bit Islamophobic?

Mark Steyn

"The problem with having the Americans as your allies is that you never know when they'll turn around and stab themselves in the back."

Bernard Lewis, as quoted in a David Warren piece on Honduras

"Ask yourself as you start your day, "Are you incorporating God into your plan?".
And if you are, then why are you not incorporating yourself into God's plan?"

via Slower Pace

Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.

Anon. h/t, Old Misery Guts, whose site quote is:

"Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone,
KINDNESS in another's trouble,
COURAGE in your own."

- Adam Lindsay Gordon

"I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money...."

Sherlock Holmes

"If you need to foresee the future, you are doing something badly wrong."

From Stumbing and Mumbling in a piece on the inability of economists and other social scientists to make predictions.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse.

Henry Ford

"A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker."

H. L. Mencken, quoted at Am Digest

Things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining.

Viktor Frankl (h/t, Vanderleun)

Spending on medical treatment is a wonderful thing and a great privilege. People should want to spend more on it. Just check out my dental implants, or read my (stainless steel) left hip. Good stuff, but not cheap - but worth every penny, and only easily available in the good old USA.

The Barrister, in a post here last week: Medical care in Canada "imploding," says top doc - plus a few words about the government Octopus and hallucinations, plus a good word for costly American bionics