Thoughts

Welcome Comrades,

While we're on the subject of American democracy (what else?) I'd like to share some stimulating words from other patriotically minded individuals. These are quotes from ages past that eerily evoke the present. That's a sign of a perceptive mind. I wonder how enduring anything said by our fearless leader, Dubya, will be...

"When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader."
---Plato
(A time-honored tradition, obviously. Good thing we're not so easily distracted today...)

"There never was a good war, or a bad peace."
---Benjamin Franklin
(Self-explanatory.)

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety."
---Benjamin Franklin
(This one's for Johnny "Watchdog" Ashcroft.)

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
---John Adams
(Oddly enough, our second President was the first one to suspend civil liberties with the Alien and Sedition Acts. Guess he knew what he was talking about. He was also the first one-term President. Here's hoping for a Bush tradition...)

"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."
---George Bernard Shaw
(How appropriate is that?)

"A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier."
---H.L. Mencken
(Mencken was a writer and editor at the Baltimore Sun for 50 years.)

"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."
---H.L. Mencken
(Amen, brother...)

"My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest."
---Mahatma Gandhi
(Boy, that sounds so naive, doesn't it?)

"The spirit of democracy cannot be established in the midst of terrorism, whether governmental or popular."
---Mahatma Gandhi
(Are you listening, Mr. Bush?)

"To answer brutality with brutality is to admit one's moral and intellectual bankruptcy."
---Mahatma Gandhi
(Think Bush would get this?)

"Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt."
---Mahatma Gandhi
(Ghandi and Jefferson agree on this point.)

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
---John F. Kennedy
(Everyone thinks he was talking about Communism, but was he? There must have been some reason the Military-Industrial Complex had him assasinated. Oh, c'mon, everyone knows that, right? It is not a conspiracy theory...)

"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular."
---Adlai Ewing Stevenson
(We can always dream...)

and finally, my favorite...

"A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election."
---Bill Vaughan
(God, that is so true!)

Hasta la victoria siempre,

TVD

--- 8/01/03

©2003 TVD