Government: The Forefathers vs. The Current Civil Servants

Our government, both state and federal, has embarked upon policies of fiscal irresponsibility. Never at any time in our nation's history have we willingly incurred so much debt for so unjust a cause. I understand the concept of going into debt in time of war, for it is for the immediate protection of the people from death and loss of liberty. But to go into debt because we do not wish to go through difficult financial times is selfish and unwise. Why should we have future generations pay for our greed? Why should government feel responsible for taxing its people simply to redistribute the wealth to companies, institutions, and individuals that the government deems worthy? Is this not the tyranny that our forefathers fought against? I believe in paying taxes and I believe in government providing for the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of its people. The bailouts, stimulus plans, and spending budgets that both the federal and state governments have promoted overstep the bounds of good and honest government. Our government is attempting to micromanage American life rather than doing its job to simply protect it. One may simply look to the wisdom of our founding fathers to see the errors of our current governing philosophy. The following are some quotes for all to reflect upon. . . perhaps it is time we vote members of both political parties out of office and bring new blood to government--people who will serve to govern the protection of the people, not to govern the people themselves. The government has a right to tax me for the protection of all American citizens. It does not have the right to tax me in order to promote a social order that has nothing to do with protecting the people and with which I fundamentally disagree (and to take out debt into the trillions to get there. . . unbelievable!).

"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

"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

"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

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." --Thomas Jefferson

"He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing." --Benjamin Franklin

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer." --Benjamin Franklin

"Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday and St. Tuesday, will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them." --Benjamin Franklin

"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy." --Benjamin Franklin

"But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." --John Adams

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." --John Adams

"Human government is more or less perfect as it approaches nearer or diverges farther from the imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government." --John Adams

"A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species." --James Madison

"But the mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain." --James Madison

"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own." --James Madison

"As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight." --Thomas Paine

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." --Thomas Paine

"If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute." --Thomas Paine

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." --Thomas Paine

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value." --Thomas Paine

"It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn." --George Washington

"No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable."--George Washington

"A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people." --Alexander Hamilton