In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
The press is the only thing keeping the politicians honest.It is our best and only chance of deterring corruption in government.
Today the Senate passed a bill to expand President Bush’s surveillance authority and grant legal immunity to the telecommunications companies that colluded with him in his warrantless domestic spying program.
The bill was an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, first signed into law in 1978. Before FISA, government eavesdropping on civilian phone conversations was common. Info collected from these private conversations was then used to blackmail public figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders.
Why spy on MLK? He certainly wasn’t a deranged terrorist plotting deadly attacks against the American people. The real threat posed by civil rights movement was that it sought to make the world a fairer place. And nothing bugs affluent white men like the threat of fairness, and its implications on their monopoly on wealth and power. We may never know if there were other would-be MLKs, stifled into submissive silence by the secrets collected about them.
FISA 1978 established a legal process in which probable cause was needed in order to obtain a warrant to listen in on our phone calls. After 9/11, the Bush administration broke the law by ignored FISA, and today the U.S. Senate retroactively declared that the President’s breaches were legal.
Nowadays, they are privy to more than our conversations. Anything you do with your cell phone is up-for-grabs (as well as whatever you do on your PC, but that’s a different issue, I think). Republican Senator Kit Bond assured us that there is nothing to worry about “unless you have al-Qaeda on your speed dial.” Just like there was nothing to worry about before as long as we were U.S. citizens. Only no one buys the feel-good caveats now. That’s the thing about governments that lie to their people. The people (should they possess any semblance of a brain stem or spinal cord) stop believing.
That’s where I am now, not believing. And trying to cope with my naiveté and disappointment, a bummed out loss of innocence that rivals that first Xmas after my parents came clean, when I knew there was no Santa Claus but still loved the myth for its magic. And I almost want to hold that magic, live on in the remnants of a lie that still feels real. But when the mirage vanishes, the tingles go away, too. All along, the jolly role model we believed in was just some laughing asshole in a costume.
We were punked! And who can we trust when our President breaks the law and 69% our Senate approves with a wink and a nod and a bullshit promise to protect us from the terrorists they created? The answer brings me back to the Jefferson quote about the free press being central to a healthy democracy. “We The People” can only stay strong and proud as long there’s a press to inform us, to invigorate us with the truth—even (or especially) when it’s painful in an unprecedented way.
But there was no free press tonight to inform the uninformed. Years ago the press auctioned away its freedom, and the audience wouldn’t divvy up. Instead of exposing the liars and their witch hunts, the way Edward R. Murrow once did, today’s talking heads wave just wave them right on through. Today’s most newsworthy event—the FISA striptease—was never going to be tonight’s “top story.” If they had to, Fox would create one. That way they wouldn’t have to mention FISA. Fox knew that if they kept the cameras rolling and the mics hot, it would only be a short while before one of their famous guests would fuck up in some minor way, handing Fox News a sound bite they could spin into a “current event.” A Bounty Hunter might reveal some inner disdain for blacks; another radio host could blurt out “nappy headed hoes.” Or maybe Jesse Jackson will mumble something about cutting off Barack Obama’s balls. Bingo.
The headline in Yahoo said it all. “Senate bows to Bush.” Now why would any sane person do that?
// The press is the only thing keeping the politicians honest //
But unfortunately the mega-media corporations, like Gannett, have gobbled up so many of the previously independent newspapers are operate them as cheap shopping advertisers. And not willing to ‘offend large advertisers, they do not print anything controversail and print generic bullshit.
We’re in deep trouble.
You forgot all these from Jefferson, and how some contradict themselves with others. More selective quotations from the Left I would assume?
A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
Thomas Jefferson
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson
A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
Thomas Jefferson
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.
Thomas Jefferson
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson
An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
Thomas Jefferson
An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.
Thomas Jefferson
As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.
Thomas Jefferson
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
Thomas Jefferson
Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
Thomas Jefferson
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
Thomas Jefferson
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
Thomas Jefferson
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Thomas Jefferson
It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
Thomas Jefferson
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
Thomas Jefferson
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
Thomas Jefferson
It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
Thomas Jefferson
It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
Thomas Jefferson
Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
Thomas Jefferson
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
Thomas Jefferson
Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
Thomas Jefferson
Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Thomas Jefferson
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
Thomas Jefferson
My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
Thomas Jefferson
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Thomas Jefferson
My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.
Thomas Jefferson
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Thomas Jefferson
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
Thomas Jefferson
No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.
Thomas Jefferson
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
Thomas Jefferson
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
Thomas Jefferson
No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
Thomas Jefferson
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson
One man with courage is a majority.
Thomas Jefferson
One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.
Thomas Jefferson
Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
Thomas Jefferson
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Thomas Jefferson
Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson
Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
Thomas Jefferson
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.
Thomas Jefferson
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.
Thomas Jefferson
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
Thomas Jefferson
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
Thomas Jefferson
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Thomas Jefferson
So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.
Thomas Jefferson
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Thomas Jefferson
Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
Thomas Jefferson
Taste cannot be controlled by law.
Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
Thomas Jefferson
That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
Thomas Jefferson
The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
Thomas Jefferson
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.
Thomas Jefferson
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
Thomas Jefferson
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
Thomas Jefferson
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
Thomas Jefferson
The god who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.
Thomas Jefferson
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
Thomas Jefferson
The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
Thomas Jefferson
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the tracts which favor that theory.
Thomas Jefferson
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
Thomas Jefferson
The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
Thomas Jefferson
The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
Thomas Jefferson
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Thomas Jefferson
The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
Thomas Jefferson
The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.
Thomas Jefferson
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson
The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.
Thomas Jefferson
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
Thomas Jefferson
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
Thomas Jefferson
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
Thomas Jefferson
The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
Thomas Jefferson
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
Thomas Jefferson
There is not a truth existing which I fear… or would wish unknown to the whole world.
Thomas Jefferson
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson
To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
Thomas Jefferson
Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.
Thomas Jefferson
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.
Thomas Jefferson
War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
Thomas Jefferson
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
Thomas Jefferson
We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.
Thomas Jefferson
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
Thomas Jefferson
We never repent of having eaten too little.
Thomas Jefferson
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
Thomas Jefferson
When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.
Thomas Jefferson
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
Thomas Jefferson
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.
Thomas Jefferson
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
Thomas Jefferson
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
Thomas Jefferson
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
Thomas Jefferson
Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.
Thomas Jefferson
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
Thomas Jefferson
Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
Thomas Jefferson
Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.
Thomas Jefferson
WOW! You are one consistent cowboy. If nothing else, I know I can always count on your unwavering ability to miss the point.
Thanks for the dedicated Cut & Paste, Tom. “Quotes.Com” has served you well. Now, for Assignment #2, why don’t you try reading some of them. Can you do that?
#4.
Please feel free to think. I know that a life only spent in school instead of practice is all you have.
Yesterdays hippies are todays CEOs running the country. Sucking in the cash, and placing greed above all else.
Glad you like my advanced PC abilities. I know opposing opinions hurt your feeling. I accept yours.
Personal attacks have no meaning to me.
That is the diff between Left and Right. All opposing idiology to the Left is a threat and must be stomped out with personal attacks and accusation. While on the Right, we want to deal with logic and an ability to accept that we all have differing opions.
And it was a diffrent quote site this time, and your invite for reading is also extended to you…..
Socialism is not Americas answer. Notice the Europe is moving away from those failed policies. (if even France is moving away…..)
And please, if you want to truly reshape America, buy you and I both some AK’s, I will stand by you if you have the courage to truly change America and want to revamp the failure of DC to do anything. I will be the first to fight back with blood and guts. I will be right there to truly fight and risk my life and fortune to both fight against the pandering political parties, and the invasions of illegals looking to reclaim US territory for Aztlan.
Just let me know when your words are done and you truly want to risk something.
Until then, all you guys on the Left are nothing but ghosts and talk.
I also want to invade Mexico. Why not, they are all here anyway on our Dime, might as well take over and make it official.
Ok, gonna go get some more beer, before Libs tell me that is illegal too. Bud is out, being that it is just one more sellout.
You opened this fight, the diffrence is the ability to respect other peoples opinions. As the Left proves time and time again they are incapable of doing.
(Note: Imus, Jackson……Rice and Powell cartoon vs Obama cartoons. oh and cartoons of McCain in captivity. One more example of Muslims mad at cartoons…hmmmmmm)
Anyway, waiting on your next insults and inability to absorb abstract thought and parroting back at me what I tell you. Liberalism is proven to be a mental disorder….and my time with you enforces that……
Anyway, time to get some more beer, and some accusation or other from you on me drinking tasting adult beverages.
I know you think this is a personal attack, but it is truly just an opposing opinion. Your reactions to it indicates personality issues.
Oh and the point of all those qoutes was to show how you based a rant on one of Jeffersons ideas, yet he has several others that contradict that one.
I like the one about advertisments.
Please, follow your own advice, and feel free to visit me at
:http://tossinghandgrenades.wordpress.com
Again, YOU missed the point. Sorry.
There you go again with blind stereotypes and false dichotomies. Is that what you call “abstract thought”? Surely you realize how generic you sound when you paint everything as “Good versus Evil” and “Us versus Them.” Americans have suffered greatly at the hands of a disengaged citizenry that would rather regurgitate propaganda than educate itself. There’s nothing abstract at all about your stale brand of uncritical “patriotism.”
And as for your Right vs. Left bullshit, give that a rest, too. You’re in the wrong neck of the woods if you think your pot-shots against “The Left” are going to offend me. I am fiscally conservative and pro-life; I support immigration reform, and I’m almost as passionate about the 2nd Amendment as I am about the 1st. My anger toward Bush is not partisan. His Presidency has been a phenomenal disaster, his abuses of power unprecedented. He has mangled our economy and wiped his ass with the same Constitution our troops take an oath to die defending. Yet when someone like Satullo has the balls to speak out against this corrupt and morally bankrupt administration, all you can manage is a simplistic, redundant wingnut rant about how much Satullo “scares” you—complete with factually wrong and out-of-context references to Jefferson and Franklin. Why not do the bold thing and stop defending this indefensible man?
I disagree with people and their belief that Bush has been disastrous president. Bush made the hard desision that we need to stop the terrorism before it had a chance to happen again, and it’s not like he had complete say in the matter, it goes through congress before it is done.
And with hurricane katrina people saying that the president should have sent in help, when the locals HAVE TO ask for it in the first place, and they were to busy arguing over what they should do.
I think it’s disgusting that new york and many other news are filled with liberals sending only what they want people to hear. For example, when we were doing good things in Iraq they were saying that it wasn’t getting any better, because they didn’t want people to know we really were doing good in Iraq.
Hi Michelle-
I want to love my country, too. But I will not and cannot deliberately blind myself to the atrocities committed in our names. The leaders we elect do not represent the goodness that you & I share. It’s your responsibility as a good citizen to stay informed. Do your own research if you “disagree” with people who criticize Bush… but you can’t simply wish away the horrifying truth just because it makes you uncomfortable.
It’s great that you know your own opinions. Base them on something substantive, then we’ll talk.