COMMON SENSE; Revisited
-
Thomas Jefferson
July 08, 2009 at 04:51 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, edited by William Peden (Chapel Hill Univerity of North Caroline Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1954).The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless…From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore…will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.
-
Sheriff Bill Masters
July 08, 2009 at 04:47 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Sheriff Bill Masters, Drug War Addiction (Accurate Press, 2001) Chapter summary #2.What kind of peace officer, what kind of society would allow a peace officer to use one minute of time, spend one dollar, or use any jail cell for a marijuana smoker, when vicious child murderers are on the loose?…Our police departments suffer corruption as a direct result of drug prohibition. The most obvious problem is that police officers can make big money dealing drugs, protecting drug dealers, or simply looking the other way. But drug prohibition also creates problems that aren’t so obvious…Zeke [Hernandez] was an 18-year-old high school student who stumbled upon a group of camouflaged and armed U.S. Marines assigned to Join Task Force Six drug interdiction team. The Marines shot and killed young Zeke, mistaking him for a drug runner…Violence in drug sales is caused by prohibition, not by the drugs themselves.
-
Judge James P. Gray
July 08, 2009 at 04:42 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Jim Wood, Coast Magazine Interview - Judge James P. Gray, (June 2001) Vol. 10 No. 7.No one, absolutely no one is even remotely talking of increasing young people’s access to harmful drugs. But what we are doing simply isn’t working. The way things are now, young people tell me it’s easier for them to find marijuana or cocaine than it is alcohol..The War on Drugs isn’t winnable, but it’s fundable…It’s not only the Drug Enforcement Administration’s nearly $20 billion annual budget but government agencies of every kind receive extra funding for drug enforcement…things must change; it is impossible to have both a free society and a drug-free society. We will have drugs; either with drug lords or without them. The answer is to hold people accountable for their actions, as we do with alcohol. And let’s get rid of this enormous and expensive bureaucracy. If you really think about it, most drug related problems stem from drug prohibition; not drugs.
-
George Santayana
July 08, 2009 at 04:34 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense (2nd ed., Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1924) Chapter XII.Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-
Marcus Tullius Cicero
July 08, 2009 at 04:32 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero, Congressional Record, vol. 114 (April 25, 1968) p. 10635. This passage was reprinted in U.S. News & World Report (July 29, 1968) p. 15.The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.
-
Hermann Goering
July 08, 2009 at 04:28 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Mark Gerzon, Leading Through Conflict (Harvard Business School Press, 2006) p. 22.Naturally the common people don’t want war. Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist disctatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
-
Michael Scheuer
July 08, 2009 at 04:24 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris (Potomac Books Inc., 2008) p. XV.U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it fair to conclude that the USA remains bin Laden’s only indispensable ally.
-
George Washington
July 08, 2009 at 04:21 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
George Washington, 5th Annual Message, Address to Congress (December 1793).There is a rank due to the United States among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.
-
Benjamin Franklin
July 08, 2009 at 04:16 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
William Cabell Bruce, Benjamin Franklin, Self-revealed (The Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1917) p. 168.The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war. They that are on their guard, and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked than the supine, secure, and the negligent.
-
Thomas Jefferson
July 08, 2009 at 04:12 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Thomas Jefferson, Paul Leicester Ford, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: 1807-1815 Vol. IX (1898) p. 520.I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.
