- NOBLE QUOTES -

 I've been collecting quotes for decades.   This is what I've amassed.   I hope you find some of it interesting.




vox populi

Verum Dicere Iis Qui Postestatem Habent
Speaking truth to power

Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos
Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants



"The law helps the vigilant, before those who sleep on their rights."
California Civil Code § 3527








Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom.
Cicero



If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.
Theodore Roosevelt


The beginning of wisdom is calling things by their right names.
Chinese Proverb   

Veritas nihil veretur nisi abscondi
Truth fears nothing but concealment.
MAXIMS OF LAW



"In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar." --
Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME 17:8
                                       
"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."
Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:209, Papers 1:134

"Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established." --
Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:422

"The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless." --
Thomas Jefferson to William Carmichael, 1790. ME 8:72

The freedom and happiness of man... [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810. ME 12:369

"Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance." --
Thomas Jefferson: Legal Argument, 1770. FE 1:376

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself a public property.
Thomas Jefferson

"It is every American’s right and obligation to read and interpret the constitution for himself."
Thomas Jefferson

"On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322.

"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. Thomas Jefferson to W, Nicholas, 1803.

"The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law, is the intention of the law givers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances, provided they do not contradict the express words of the law."
Thomas Jefferson to A. Gallatin, 1808.

"I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless."
Thomas Jefferson to W. Nicholas, 1803.

Ridicule is the only weapon that can be used against unintelligible propositions.
Thomas Jefferson


The most important political office is that of the private citizen.  
Justice Louis D. Brandeis

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
Louis D. Brandeis

Those who won our independence... valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.
Louis D. Brandeis

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
Louis D. Brandeis

Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.
Louis D. Brandeis

What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech.
Louis D. Brandeis


“I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution.” 
Barrack Hussein Obama.







"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."
William Kingdon Clifford

“you work, I eat.”, how President Abraham Lincoln described slavery

Romans 4:15:   For the law worketh wrath.   For where there is no law, neither is there transgression.        

Ubi factum nullum ibi sortia nulla.
Where there is no deed committed, there can be no consequence.
4 Co. 43
                               
CALIFORNIA CIVIL CODE

    3527.  The law helps the vigilant, before those who sleep on their rights.


All I need is a few miserable gallons of gasoline.   Right now, the weak spot is here.  In days, we could be in Berlin.
                  
What about the fortifications that were done in Metz?
             
Fixed fortifications, huh?   Monuments to the stupidity of man.  When mountain ranges and oceans could be overcome. . . . . .anything built by man can be overcome.
George C. Scott, Patton, 1970

“Time does not confirm a void act.”         
California Civil Code section 3539


People can only be misled for so long before they get angry.
Steve Wynn, Chairman and CEO Wynn Resorts Ltd., Jan. 19, 2016
               
“Invito Beneficium Non Datur”
“No one is obliged to accept a benefit against his consent”

"Thou shall not have divers weight and measures but thou shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure."
(Deut. 25:13-15)

Actori incumbit onus probandi 
The burden of proof lies on the plaintiff.


We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Einstein

 "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
Albert Einstein

 "It is not enough for a handful of experts to attempt the solution of a problem, to solve it and then to apply it. The restriction of knowledge to an elite group destroys the spirit of society and leads to its intellectual impoverishment."
Albert Einstein

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
Albert Einstein
 
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." 
Albert Einstein

"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."
Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921

"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
Albert Einstein

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. "
 Albert Einstein


"On behalf of all of us, let me just say that we are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you, and we can't thank you enough,..."
Fraudbama, July 15, 2013   

To anyone out there who has ever been assaulted:  You are not alone.  We have your back.  I’ve got your back.
Fraudbama, January 23, 1014

Anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction.
Fraudbama, State of the Union Speech, 2016

"America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity.”
Posebama

“That's the good thing as a President, I can do whatever I want.”
Warbama, Feb 10, 2014


“…the President is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of this corporation called the United States of America”.
Allen West (dude in the middle), Former Tea Party Congressman from Florida, March 9, 2011.  Interviewed by Judge Andrew Napolitano on The Glenn Beck show.

“American exceptionalism has to be driven out of our curriculums.  We’re not under threat.  We are the threat.”
Oliver Stone: Stone says he wants to counter the “educational crime” of misleading American schoolchildren.
- DECEIT & LIES -






"I never sent or received any classified material." 
Hillary Clinton, Thursday, February 4, 2016, Democrat Debate







We live entangled in webs of endless deceit, often self-deceit, but with a little honest effort, it is possible to extricate ourselves from them.  If we do we will see a world that is rather different from the one presented to us by a remarkably effective ideological system, a world that is much uglier, often horrifying.  We will also learn that our own action, or passive acquiescence, contribute quite substantially to misery and oppression, and even global destruction.
Noam Chomsky, Turning The Tide, South End Press, 1985

 The beauty of the democratic systems of thought control, as contrasted with their clumsy totalitarian counterparts, is that they operate by subtly establishing on a voluntary basis aided by the force of nationalism and media control by substantial interests~presuppositions that set the limits of debate, rather than by imposing beliefs with a bludgeon. Then let the debate rage; the more lively and vigorous it is, the better the propaganda system is served, since the presuppositions (U.S. benevolence, lack of rational imperial goals, defensive posture, etc.) are more firmly established. Those who do not accept the fundamental principles of state propaganda are simply excluded from the debate (or if noticed, dismissed as "emotional," "irresponsible," etc.). 
Noam Chomsky

 If, however, the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear, and think about, and to "manage" public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality.
Noam Chomsky

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.
Noam Chomsky

U.S. policy... has sought to destroy human rights, to lower the living standards, and to prevent democratization, often with considerable passion and violence.
Noam Chomsky, Turning The Tide, 1985

"This action is in fact a call for a lawless world in which the powerful will rule.  The powerful happen to be the United States and Britain, which is by now a pathetic puppy dog that has abandoned any pretense of being an independent state."
Noam Chomsky

"I don't have faith that the truth will prevail if it becomes known, but we have no alternative to proceeding on that assumption, whatever its credibility may be."
Noam Chomsky

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody else is spouting, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.
Noam Chomsky

What is called 'capitalism' is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy, political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close cooperation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society.
Noam Chomsky on "Anarchism, Marxism, and Hope for the Future" in Red and Black Revolution, May 1995. 





"The National Security State uses fascism to protect capitalism while they say they're protecting democracy from communism."
Michael Parenti




'One of the saddest lessons of history is this:  If we've been Bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the Bamboozle.  We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The Bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge - even to ourselves - that we've been so credulous.'
Carl Sagan  


     

"In reality, most people in America live in a police state, and are completely unaware of it."
George Gordon


The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad.  The primitive simplicity of their minds render them more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one.
Adolf  Hitler   



"I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth.   I assisted in furthering that version."
Colonel Oliver North, from his Iran-Contra testimony

For there is not any thing secret that shall not be made manifest, nor hidden that shall not be known and come abroad.
Luke: 8:17

And you shall know the truth: and the truth shall make you free.
John:  8:32

For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed: nor hidden that shall not be known.
Luke: 12:2
- PROPAGANDA -


"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have."
Richard Salent, Former President CBS News.


The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.   It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State.
Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels

There is no need for propaganda to be rich in intellectual content.
P.J. Goebbels: Speech at Nurnberg, Aug. 20, 1926.

"The rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine.  Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious."
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly ... it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda




"News is what someone wants to suppress.  Everything else is advertising".
Israel Reuven Frank, Former NBC news President (1968 - 1974, 1982 - 1984)




SCARBOROUGH:   "Exactly. That is exactly what I hear. What Yamiche said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters. They go, 'Yeah you guys are going crazy. He's doing -- what are you so surprised about? He is doing exactly what he said he is going to do.'"  

BRZEZINSKI:   "Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job."
Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC co-host, Morning Joe, February 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoXGV4Vw-VA


"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread.   We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.   We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance.   Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.  We are intellectual prostitutes."
John Swinton
Chief of Staff New York Times at New York Press Club, 1953 



"I feel sorry for the man who, after reading the daily newspaper, goes to bed believing he knows something of what's going on in the world."
Henry Louis Mencken (1880 - 1956)

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."
H. L. Mencken

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
H.L. Mencken

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality."
H.L. Mencken

"There usually is an answer to any problem: simple, clean, and wrong."
H.L. Mencken

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
H. L. Mencken

"No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. Whenever the secular arm is called in to sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is downright idiotic."
Henry Louis Mencken

It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.
Henry L. Mencken, 1926.




Propaganda must not serve the truth, especially as it might bring out something favorable for the opponent.
Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf


It is necessary to be very intelligent in the work of repression.   All opposition journals have been suppressed and all the anti-fascist organizations dissolved.
Benito Mussolini: Speech, May 26, 1926.


The conscience and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits of the masses is an important element of in democratic society...it is the intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically.  In the active proselytizing of minorities in whom selfish interests and public interests coincide lie the progress and development of America.
Edward Bernays, cir 1920's
Served on the government propaganda commission during WWI.
Turning the Tide, US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace,
Noam Chomsky                       
South End Press, 1985 p. 235

 "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.. ...it is the intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically.   In the active proselytizing of minorities in whom selfish interests and public interests coincide lie the progress and development of America.  Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."
Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928)

"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it."
Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud,
America's No. 1 Publicist in the 1920's




The special importance of propaganda in what Walter Lippmann referred to as the "manufacture of consent" has long been recognized by writers on public opinion, propaganda, and the political requirements of social order.  Lippmann himself, writing in the early 1920s, claimed that propaganda had already become "a regular organ of popular government," and was steadily increasing in sophistication and importance. We do not contend that this is all the mass media do, but we believe the propaganda function to be a very important aspect of their overall service.
Noam  Chomsky
Source: Manufacturing Consent, preface, pg xi

Perhaps this is an obvious point, but the democratic postulate is that the media are independent and committed to discovering and reporting the truth, and that they do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it be perceived. Leaders of the media claim that their news choices rest on unbiased professional and objective criteria, and they have support for this contention in the intellectual community. If, however, the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear, and think about, and to "manage" public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality.
Noam  Chomsky
Source: Manufacturing Consent, preface, pg xi

The general subservience of the articulate intelligentsia to the framework of state propaganda is not only unrecognized, it is strenuously denied by the propaganda system. The press and the intelligentsia in general are held to be fiercely independent, critical, antagonistic to the state, even suffused by a trendy anti-Americanism. It is quite true that controversy rages over government policies and the errors or even crimes of government officials and agencies. But the impression of internal dissidence is misleading. A more careful analysis shows that this controversy takes place, for the most part, within the narrow limits of a set of patriotic premises. Thus it is quite tolerable--indeed, a contribution to the propaganda system--for the Free Press to denounce the government for its "errors" in attempting "to defend South Vietnam from North Vietnamese aggression," since by so doing it helps to establish more firmly the basic myth: that the United States was not engaged in a savage attack on South Vietnam but was rather "defending" it. If even the hostile critics adopt these assumptions, then clearly they must be true.
Noam  Chomsky
Source: with Edward S. Herman, After the Cataclysm, 1979

For the totalitarian mind, adherence to state propaganda does not suffice: one must display proper enthusiasm while marching in the parade.
Noam Chomsky





"The news and truth are not the same thing."
Walter Lippmann, American journalist, 1889-1974


We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat like the tube. You even think like the tube. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion."
Howard Beale
From the movie “Network”
~~~~~~~~~~~~


Today, after two thousand years, with deepest  emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed  His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And  if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows.

For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people."
Adolf Hitler

Jawohl, mein Fuehrer!

Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice.
Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf.


A great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.
Herbert C. Hoover: Speaking of Prohibition in a letter to William E. Borah, Feb. 28, 1928.  




Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose.
Friedrich Nietzsche: The Antichrist.


Then there is the sound of a gunshot.  For a moment they all fall silent.  Then Helmut shouts: ‘Bullseye!’
Helmut  Goebbels
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3037701/Hitler-s-24-hours-Bullseye-shouted-Goebbels-little-boy-Hitler-shot-head.html


"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who will guard the guards?)                          
Juvenol, 1st cent. Roman satirical poet


Bush is a thug.  I think there is something really wrong with him.
Gore Vidal, 2006 (Referring to Jr.)
TOP TEN KISSINGER QUOTES


"The illegal we do immediately.   The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
Henry Kissinger, The Sayings of Secretary Henry, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 28, 1973, § 6, at 91, 95 (DuPre Jones comp.)

"Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs."
Henry Kissinger

"Military Men Are Just Dumb, Stupid, Animals To Be Used As Pawns In Foreign Policy"
Henry Kissinger

"NAFTA represents the single most creative step towards a New World Order."
Kissinger (Aug.1993, Los Angeles Times Syndicate)

1. Soviet Jews: “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” (link)

2. Bombing Cambodia: “[Nixon] wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything about it. It’s an order, to be done. Anything that flies on anything that moves.” (link) (Emphasis added)

3. Bombing Vietnam: “It’s wave after wave of planes. You see, they can’t see the B-52 and they dropped a million pounds of bombs … I bet you we will have had more planes over there in one day than Johnson had in a month … each plane can carry about 10 times the load of World War II plane could carry.”  (link)

4. Khmer Rouge: “How many people did (Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary) kill? Tens of thousands? You should tell the Cambodians (i.e., Khmer Rouge) that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in the way. We are prepared to improve relations with them. Tell them the latter part, but don’t tell them what I said before.” (from November 26, 1975 Meeting With Thai Foreign Minister.)

5. Dan Ellsberg: “Because that son-of-a-bitch—First of all, I would expect—I know him well—I am sure he has some more information—I would bet that he has more information that he’s saving for the trial.  Examples of American war crimes that triggered him into it…It’s the way he’d operate….Because he is a despicable bastard.” (Oval Office tape, July 27, 1971)

6. Robert McNamara: “Boohoo, boohoo … He’s still beating his breast, right? Still feeling guilty. ” (Pretending to cry, rubbing his eyes.)

7. Assassination:  “It is an act of insanity and national humiliation to have a law prohibiting the President from ordering assassination.” (Statement at a National Security Council meeting , 1975)

8. Chile: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” (link)

9. Illegality-Unconstitutionality: “The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.” (from March 10, 1975 Meeting With Turkish Foreign Minister Melih Esenbel in Ankara, Turkey)

10. Himself: “Americans like the cowboy … who rides all alone into the town, the village, with his horse and nothing else … This amazing, romantic character suits me precisely because to be alone has always been part of my style or, if you like, my technique.” (November 1972 Interview with Oriana Fallaci)

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/here-are-the-top-10-most-callous-and-inhumane-henry-kissinger-quotes/


"It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.   We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution.   The freeman of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents.   They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle."
James Madison


Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.     
George Santayana


“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers."
Thomas Pynchon

There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.
Hamlet


"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."
Benito  Mussolini
Source: cited by Lewis Lapham in Harper's, January 2002

"Oligarchy?   A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it."
Plato, The Republic - Book VIII


"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
Frederic Bastiat

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.  Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?
Frederick Bastiat




"The presumption is simply that the weaker party consent to be slaves.   Such is the presumption on which alone our government relies to justify the power it maintains over  it's unwilling subjects.  The real motives and spirit which lie at the foundation of all legislation are the same today as they always have been  to keep one class of men in subordination and servitude to another."
Lysander Spooner

Those capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it.
Lysander Spooner

“In this state as in all republics, it is not the Legislature, however translucent it’s powers, who are supreme - but the people - and to suppose that they may violate the fundamental law, is, as has been most eloquently expressed, to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principle; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of delegated power may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
Waring v. Mayor of Savannah, 60 Georgia page 93


When the Greek ambassador objected to President Johnson's plan for settling a dispute concerning Cyprus, LBJ told him: 

"Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good....If your prime minister gives me talk about democracy, parliament and constitutions, he, his parliament and his constitution may not last very long."


It is a government of the people by the people for the people no longer it is a government of corporations by corporations for corporations.
Rutherford. B. Hayes, 19th president of the United States


Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes the laws.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812).


Politicians are swine.  You cannot reason with swine.  You must hit them on the nose with a stick.
Bertold  Brecht

 Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment.  Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice.  Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry of wonderful times to come.  Those who lead the country into the abyss call ruling difficult for ordinary folk.
Bertoldt  Brecht

He who knows not is a fool, but he who knows and says not a criminal.
Bertoldt  Brecht

"When the leaders speak of peace
The common folk know
That war is coming.
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out."
Bertoldt Brecht

"What is robbing a bank compared to owning a bank!"
BERTOLT BRECHT, The Threepenny Opera


I am convinced that those societies [as the Indians] which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments.
Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787

Ridicule is the only weapon that can be used against unintelligible propositions.
Thomas Jefferson

"Those who steal from private individuals spend their lives in stocks and chains;  those who steal from the public treasury go dressed in gold and purple." 
Marcus Porcius Cato, Roman Statesman (190 BC)


"We hang the petty thieves and elect the great ones to public office."
Aesop


They will do whatever we let them get away with.                 
Joseph  Heller   




"With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but with tyrants, I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost."
William Lloyd Garrison

           
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Krishnamurti


Democracy gives [the beatification of mediocrity] a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth.   The mob man functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world — that he is genuinely running things.   Out of his maudlin herding after rogues and mountebanks there comes to him a sense of vast and mysterious power — which is what makes archbishops, police sergeants, the grand goblins of the Ku Klux and other such magnificoes happy.   And out of it there comes, too, a conviction that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters — which is what makes United States Senators, fortune tellers and Young Intellectuals happy. Finally, there comes out of it a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy.
H.L.  Mencken

 The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched.  He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.
H.L.  Mencken

The Jews could be put down very plausibly as the most unpleasant race ever heard of.   As commonly encountered, they lack many of the qualities that mark the civilized man: courage, dignity, incorruptibility, ease, confidence.   They have vanity without pride, voluptuousness without taste, and learning without wisdom.   Their fortitude, such as it is, is wasted upon puerile objects, and their charity is mainly a form of display.
H. L. Mencken

The truth is that the average schoolmaster, on all the lower levels, is and always must be...next door to an idiot, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation?
H. L. Mencken


Take away the right to say “fuck” and you take away the right to say “fuck the government”.
Lenny Bruce

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses."
 Lenny Bruce





'Every apathetic individual is a brick in a tyrant's throne'.
Philip  Slater


That which we are, we are.   And if we are to be any better now is the time begin.
Alfred Lord Tennyson   





You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
Albert Einstein

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Albert Einstein


"...He who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honor by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully ...[When violence] is offered in self-defense or for the defense of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission."
Gandhi, “Between Cowardice And Violence”

A 'No' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater  than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble."
Mahatma Gandhi

"If I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics encircles us today like the coil of a snake from which one cannot get out, no matter how much one tries. I  wish therefore to wrestle with the snake."
Mahatma Gandhi

I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence. Thus when my  eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether  he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence...
Mahatma Gandhi

 "Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood."
Mahatma Gandhi

"It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing.  It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit.  But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing.  You may never know what results come from your action.  But if you do nothing, there will be no result."
Gandhi

Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Mohandas Gandhi

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
Mohandas Gandhi

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
Gandhi

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
Gandhi


My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders.  The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; its institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease and death.   To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags - that is a loyalty of unreason…
Mark  Twain

In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.
Mark  Twain - Source: Mark Twain's Autobiography, 1959.

 "In the beginning of a change, The Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned.  When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." 
Mark Twain

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
Mark Twain

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain

 “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”
Mark Twain

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have these three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence to practice neither
Mark Twain

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.   It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."
Mark  Twain


"It is embarrassing to see George Bush pretending to be president,"
Retired Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy
October 6, 2004

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.
unknown 




"Every one of our purchases is a vote, a vote for a particular company and its business practices."
Eric Schlosser,  author of “Fast Food Nation”

Quaeras de dubiis, legem bene discere si vis.
Inquire into them, is the way to know what things are really true.
Litt. Sec. 443.

"If they turn on the radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs (surface-to-air missiles). They know we own their country. We own their airspace... We dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now. It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need."
U.S. Brig. General William Looney (Interview Washington Post, August 30, 1999) [Referring, in reality, to the brutal mass-murder of hundreds of civilian Iraqi men, women and children during 10,000 sorties by American/British war criminals in the first eight months of 1999]


"I don't know how the hell these people got into our army."
Colorado Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell

The map is not the territory.
Alfred Korzybski




Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your  heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
James Allen


We must ever maintain the principle that the people of this continent alone have the right to decide their own destiny.
James K. Polk - Message to Congress, 1845 - 11th President (1845-1849)

"Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."                
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961)


"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so;  For tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men."
Voltarine de Cleyre

"To me, any dependence, any thing which destroys the complete selfhood of  the individual, is in the line of slavery."
Voltairine de Cleyre

           
"A cultist is one who has a strong belief in the Bible and the Second Coming of Christ; who frequently attends Bible studies; who has a high level of financial giving to a Christian cause; who home schools for their children; who has accumulated survival foods and has a strong belief  in the Second Amendment; and who distrusts big government.  Any of these may qualify a person as a cultist but certainly more than one of these  would cause us to look at this person as a threat and his family as  being in a risk situation that qualifies for government interference."
Janet Reno, Attny. General of the United States during an Interview on CBS "60 Minutes" on June 26, 1999

That piece of shit followed Bill Clinton's ORDER to burn up a bunch of kids in Waco Texas.


“We do not ask we command.”
Pope to Michelangelo

"Pax Vobiscum!"
(Peace go with you.)


"First, it is considered absurd and ignored or ridiculed.
Next, it is considered dangerous to the status quo and viciously attacked.
Lastly, it is considered wholesome, indeed, self-evident."                    
Arthur Schopenhauer's three stages of truth


"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe that there would be a revolution before morning."
Henry Ford




When Hitler came for the Jews... I was not a Jew, therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church — and there was nobody left to be concerned.
Pastor Martin Niemoller, arrested by the Gestapo in 1937
Congressional Record, October 14, 1968, vol. 114, p. 31636.


"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
Theodore Roosevelt


"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are." 
Benjamin Franklin

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results, and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished, asked him directly:  "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic if you can keep it" responded Franklin.

                                   
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor  Roosevelt

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.
John Hay - Castilian Days, II, 1872

“There are some things so disgusting that only a white man would be willing to do them.”
Walter Wildshoe, Coeur d’Alene Indian


When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.




"Instead of looking upon the State's progressive absorption of social power with the repugnance and resentment that he would naturally feel toward the activities of a professional criminal organization, he tends rather to encourage and glorify it, in the belief that he is somehow identified with the State, and ... he therefore consents to something in which he has a share." 
Albert J. Nock, “Our Enemy, The State”, 1935


“I spent 33 years...being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.  In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism... I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909 - 1912.  I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916.  I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916.  I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street...  Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints.  The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents. ”
General Smedly Butler, 2 time Medal of Honor winner.
(Turning the Tide, US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace,
Noam Chomsky
South End Press, 1985, p. 95)

"We know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. We have the receipts."
You attribute this to a "Mark Russell" when in fact comedian / philosopher Bill Hicks used this joke in his act circa 1991 "Iraq - Incredible weapons. How do we know that? We checked the receipts


“Mundus vult decipi” (“the world wants to be deceived”)
Martin Luther (1483-1546)


“..we have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.  Our task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.  To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.  We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction...  We should cease to talk about vague and - for the Far East - unreal objectives such as human rights, raising the living standards, and democratization.  The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.  The less hampered we are by idealistic slogans the better.”
George Kennan, head of the State Department planning staff,
Policy Planning Study (PPS) 23, Feb. 1948
Turning the Tide, US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace,
Noam Chomsky
South End Press, 1985. p. 48   

I believe the foregoing quote forms the basis of US government foreign "policy".   Go kill them and steal their shit before they come over here and do the same thing this government has been doing.   And nearly EVERY other "government" throughout history.




“No damn man kills me and lives."
General Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA




"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex.  The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.  We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.  We should take nothing for  granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."
President Eisenhower - January 1961




"The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."
Will Rogers


It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men.
Samuel Adams 


             
    
It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.
Noam  Chomsky


"When you respond to an unreasonable person by getting emotional, you give them victory.  How do you manage unreasonable people?  You dismiss them...like shadows" 
Dr. David Viscott

 A neurotic is a person who builds castles in the air, and a psychotic is one who lives in them. 
Dr. David Viscott

 "...because our energy is limited, "it's wasteful to use it in any way except in the pursuit of the truth", otherwise "we end up trying to justify what's simply not true."  And when we work to support a lie, especially if we are unaware of doing it, "it becomes increasingly difficult to tell what's real" and that "to give up the lie seems like losing a part of ourselves."
Dr. David Viscott - "Toward An American Revolution", 1988, Jerry Fresia


If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it's still a foolish thing. --
Bertrand Russell

"Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so."
Bertrand Russell

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
Bertrand Russell

It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather than the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.
Bertrand Russell

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Bertrand Russell

What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires ~ desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.
Bertrand Russell


Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe.   For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid.  There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines. --
R. Buckminster Fuller


"One of the greatest attractions of patriotism — it fulfills our worst wishes.   In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat.   Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous."
Aldous Huxley

 " An organization is neither conscious nor alive.   Its value is instrumental and derivative.   It is not good in itself; it is good only to the extent that it promises the good of the individuals who are part of collective whole.   To give organizations precedence over persons is to subordinate ends to means."
Aldous Huxley

"In 1931, when Brave New World was being written, I was convinced that there was still plenty of time. The completely organized society, the scientific caste system, the abolition of free will by methodical conditioning, the servitude made acceptable by regular doses of chemically induced happiness, the orthodoxies drummed in by nightly courses of sleep~teaching ~ these things were coming all right, but not in my time, not even in the time of my grandchildren.... Twenty~seven years later...I feel a good deal less optimistic... In the West,...individual men and women still enjoy a large measure of freedom. But...this freedom and even the desire for this freedom seem to be on the wane."
Aldous Huxley Brave New World Revisited 1958

Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.
Aldous Huxley

Here the theoretical reduction of unmanageable multiplicity to comprehensible unity becomes the practical reduction of human diversity to subhuman uniformity, of freedom to servitude. In politics the equivalent of a fully developed scientific theory or philosophical system is a totalitarian dictatorship. In economics, the equivalent of a beautifully composed work of art is the smoothly running factory in which the workers are perfectly adjusted to the machines.

Too much organization transforms men and women into automata, suffocates the creative spirit and abolishes the very possibility of freedom.
Aldous Huxley

And that is the secret of happiness and virtue ~ liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny.
Aldous Huxley.  Brave New World

 An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.
Aldous Huxley


"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
Galileo Galilei

"The reason lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place is because the same place isn't there the second time."
Willie Tyler

Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true.
Polish Proverb

Corporation:  An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.


In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other.
Voltaire 1764

 It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
Voltaire

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Voltaire

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.
Voltaire


Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.   Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.   Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
Chief Seattle






It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.
Noel Coward 

186,000 miles per second:  It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!

What is a "free" gift?  Aren't all gifts free?
 
Often we have no time for our friends but all the time in the world for our enemies. 
Leon Uris, Redemption

Anyone can make a mistake.   A fool insists on repeating it.
Robertine Maynard, quoted by Bob Maynard, Universal Press Syndicate


"Don't worry about American pressure on Israel.  We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."
Ariel Sharon


"You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom.  You can only be free if I am."
Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)

"We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States."
Clarence Darrow

 To think is to differ.
Clarence Darrow
- FEAR & TERROR -


"When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril."
Harry Truman, 33rd President of US Inc.



“Terrorism is the deliberate and systematic murder, maiming, and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends.
TERRORISM: How the West Can Win, Benjamin Netanyahu, Avon Books (254pgs), first published December 31st 1986,  ISBN:  0380703211 (ISBN13: 9780380703210)

The one means that wins the easiest victory over reason:  terror and force.
Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf.


"Scare the hell out of the American people."
Senator Arthur Vandenburg 
(telling President Truman what the he needed  to do in order to tax the American people to pay for the weapons and covert activities of the US National Security State)

The world can only be ruled by fear.
Adolph Hitler, 1933

'Brutality and physical strength. . . . The people need wholesome fear.  They want to fear something.  They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive. . . . Terror is the most effective political instrument.   I shall not permit myself to be robbed, of it because a lot of stupid bourgeois mollycoddles choose to be offended by it.   It is my duty to make use of every means of training the German people to severity and to prepare them for war. . . . My behavior in war-time will be no different.  The most horrible warfare is the kindest.  I shall spread terror by the surprise employment of all my measures.  The important thing is the sudden shock of an overwhelming fear of death.'
Adolph Hitler, 1933
H. Rauschning, Hitler Speaks, 1939, pp. 87, 89, 90.


Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency.   Always there has been some terrible evil... to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded.  Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.
General Douglas MacArthur 1957


"I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes.  The moral effect should be good... and it would spread a lively terror.... "
Winston Churchill
Commenting on the British use of poison gas against the Iraqis after World War I

“The ultimate target is the human mind.   It may be ‘changed’, it may be rendered impotent for expression or it may be extinguished, bit it still remains the critical target”
USAID REPORT, 1963
Notes on Strategic Hamlets, USOM, Saigon, Office of Rural Affairs, May 1963; cited by Richard White, the Morass, (Harper & Row, 1984), 114
Turning the Tide, US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace,
Noam Chomsky
South End Press, 1985. p. 30

Gen. “Howling” Jake Smith launched his extermination offensive in Samar against the native population, telling his field commanders to make Samar a howling wilderness, "I want no prisoners, I wish you to kill and burn: the more you kill and burn, the better you will please me. "He wanted "everybody killed capable of bearing arms [...] over ten years of age" (Slotkin, 119). Estimates are that some 42,000 Filipinos perished in the 'howling wilderness' operation.
Turning the Tide, US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace,
Noam Chomsky
South End Press, 1985


'Our race is the Master Race.  We are divine gods on this planet.  We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best.  Other races are considered as human excrement.  Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races.  Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron.  The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves.'
Former Israel Prime Minister and terrorist, Menachem Begin (who won the Nobel Peace Prize!).

If he's a member of the "Master Race" then how come he's dead?   How come that other "Master Racer" Ariel Sharon is dead?   How come all the "Master Racers" who are dead are dead?    I think if you're a "Master Racer" your hair doesn't fall out, you don't need glasses, and you don't die.    And do you really need to eat?  

~~~~~~~~~~~

Is it possible for a class which exterminates the native peoples of the Americas, replaces them by raping Africa for humans it then denigrates and dehumanizes as slaves, while cheapening and degrading its own working class, is it possible for such a class to create democracy, equality, and to advance the cause of human freedom?
Jerry Fresia,  “Toward An American Revolution”, 1988

"It is the duty of the courts to be watchful for the Constitutional rights of the citizen and against any stealthy encroachments thereon."
Boyd vs. United States (1886) 116 US 616

We often take domination for granted and think it is resistence to domination that must be explained.
Frances Fox Piven & Richard Cloward
“The New Class War, Reagan's Attack On The Welfare State And Its Consequences", Pantheon Books: 1982/1985

Pity the poor, wretched, timid soul, too faint hearted to resist his oppressors.  He sings the songs of the damned, I cannot resist, I have too much to lose, they might take my property or confiscate my earnings, what would my family do, how would they survive.   He hides behind pretended family responsibility, failing to see that the most glorious legacy that we can bequeath to our posterity is liberty!
W. Vaughn Elllsworth
              
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must ... undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
Thomas Paine

"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for,"
James Madison, Federalist Paper 41

If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retributions.
Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead et al. v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, at 485 (1928)



"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.   They want rain without thunder and lightning.  They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.  This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle!  Power concedes
nothing without a demand.  It never did, and it never will.  Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of  injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and  these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.  The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Frederick Douglas, August 4, 1857

               
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too."
Somerset Maugham


"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace.   We seek not your counsel, nor your arms.  Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you.   May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams

"There is no art which one government sooner learns of another, than that of draining money from the pockets of the people."
Adam Smith (1776), Wealth of Nations, pg. 532 (Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York 1991)


Under Johnson the CIA developed an illegal domestic surveillance network; its existence was denied under oath by Richard Helms, who set it up.
“Ronald Reagan The Movie, And Other Episodes in Political Demonology”, Michael Rogin 1987, UC Berkekey professor

"...to deny and repress what we see and hear and know is to live in a purely invented world, a world where reason must die and where stupidity must reign."
ibid

"...the power of elites can be legitimized by our ignorance of what is really going on..."
ibid

cir. 2005

Criminal law behavioral defense is not applicable to contract squabbles.
Richard, Parks Iverson


I believe in compulsory cannibalism.   If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.
Abbie Hoffman

"My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth."
George Washington


Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.   It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.   The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C.S. Lewis


This is another fine mess you've gotten us into Stanley.
Oliver Hardy

“In the early days of the republic, it would have been unthinkable that Congress could prohibit the local cultivation, possession, and consumption of marijuana.”
Justice Clarence Thomas June 6, 2005
In his dissent in US Supreme Court Case 03-1454
- WAR -


If only more of today's military personnel would realize that they are being used by the owning elite's as a publicly subsidized capitalist goon squad.
Gen. Smedley Butler, two time Medal Of Honor winner

"No triumph of peace can equal the armed triumph of war." "In strict confidence ...I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one."
Theodore Roosevelt



"Why of course the people don't want war.   Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? 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 dictatorship, 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 to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
Nazi leader, Hermann Goering,
At the Nuremberg Trials before he was sentenced to death



I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own.  And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans.
General David Shoup, 22nd Commandant of the Marine Corps (1960–1963), Medal of Honor Recipient

“I’ve never seen a president – I don’t care who he is – stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles your mind.  They always get what they want.  The Israelis know what is going on all the time.  I got to the point where I wasn’t writing anything down.  If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms.  Our citizens don’t have any idea what goes on.”
Thomas Hinman Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974

“..we have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.  Our task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.  To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.  We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction...  We should cease to talk about vague and - for the Far East - unreal objectives such as human rights, raising the living standards, and democratization.  The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.  The less hampered we are by idealistic slogans the better.”
George Kennan, head of the State Department planning staff,
Policy Planning Study (PPS) 23, Feb. 1948
Turning the Tide, US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace,
Noam Chomsky
South End Press, 1985. p. 48   



America is today the leader of a world-wide anti revolutionary movement in defense of vested interests.   She now stands for what Rome stood for.   Rome consistently supported the rich against the poor in all foreign communities that fell under her sway; and, since the poor, so far, have always and everywhere been far more numerous than the rich, Rome's policy made for inequality, for injustice, and the least happiness for the greatest number.
Arnold J Toynbee, British historian

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression.   In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged.  And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas


If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged.
Noam Chomsky

The process of barring public interference with important matters takes a step forward when elections do not even enable the public to select among programs that originate elsewhere, but become merely a procedure for selecting a symbolic figure.
Noam  Chomsky
Source: Necessary Illusions

The beauty of the democratic systems of thought control, as contrasted with their clumsy totalitarian counterparts, is that they operate by subtly establishing on a voluntary basis--aided by the force of nationalism and media control by substantial interests--presuppositions that set the limits of debate, rather than by imposing beliefs with a bludgeon. Then let the debate rage; the more lively and vigorous it is, the better the propaganda system is served, since the presuppositions (U.S. benevolence, lack of rational imperial goals, defensive posture, etc.) are more firmly established. Those who do not accept the fundamental principles of state propaganda are simply excluded from the debate (or if noticed, dismissed as "emotional," "irresponsible," etc.).
Noam  Chomsky
Source: with Edward S. Herman, After the Cataclysm, 1979

But, that's the whole point of corporatization -- to try to remove the public from making decisions over their own  fate, to limit the public arena, to control opinion, to make sure that the fundamental decisions that determine how the world is going to be run -- which includes production, commerce, distribution, thought, social policy, foreign policy, everything -- are not in the hands of the public, but rather in the hands of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny unaccountable to the public.
Source: A Corporate Watch Interview With Noam Chomsky



Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white
Frank Zappa, "Trouble Everyday"





Despite the clear link between U.S. sponsorship and support, on the one hand, and the use of terror and serious human rights violations, on the other, the nature and importance of the "Washington connection" are generally ignored in the West and the United States is regarded as in the vanguard of the defense of human rights. To some extent this faith rests on the facile--and still widely prevalent--assumption that external misbehavior is closely related to internal repression and limitations on freedom of dissent. As should be obvious from the most cursory examination of history, however, internal freedom is quite compatible with exploitative and inhumane external conduct extending over many decades. Even in the fountainhead of Western democracy, ancient Athens, the development of a military establishment (a naval fleet) "made Athens securely democratic and incurably aggressive...Moreover, the aggressiveness of the Athenian polis was enhanced when rowers' pay and plunder became, for a surprisingly large proportion of the Athenian citizenry, a necessary or at least highly desirable addition to the family resources. Against this background, Athens' ruthless and incessant naval enterprise, which kept the entire Greek world in turmoil from 480 to 404 B.C., becomes intellible." The cruel  plundering of India, China, the East Indies, and Africa by the relatively liberal and open societies of Western Europe from the 17th well into the 20th centuries also shows that internal freedom and long-term external viciousness are entirely compatible.
Noam  Chomsky
Source: with Edward S. Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, 1979, p. 66-67.

In every society, there will emerge a caste of propagandists who labor to disguise the obvious, to conceal the actual workings of power, and to spin a web of mythical goals and purposes, utterly benign, that allegedly guide national policy. A typical example of the propaganda system is that 'the nation' is an agent in international affairs, not special groups within it, and that 'the nation' is guided by certain ideals and principles, all of them noble.
RADICAL PRIORITIES
Noam  Chomsky

"Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman or child is likely to be displaced, tortured, killed or "disappeared", at the hands of governments or armed political groups. More often than not, the United States shares the blame."
Amnesty International, 1996

An important fact about our intellectual culture is that people can read and write about our long-term policies of defending market democracy from the Communist threat without laughing. That takes no little talent. It is real tribute to the educational institutions and the information system.
Noam  Chomsky

Established institutions, with overwhelmingly dominant power, tend to line up in goose-step fashion in support of any state foreign venture, no matter how immoral (until the cost becomes too high).
Noam  Chomsky
Source: with Edward S. Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, 1979, preface, p. 2

The absence of official censorship allows room for sometimes vigorous debate among the substantial interests, and fringe and dissident elements are at least allowed to exist and argue, mainly among themselves, but occasionally penetrating to the consciousness of decision-makers, especially on matters of irrational behavior in relationship to establishment objectives.
Noam  Chomsky and Edward S. Herman
Source: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, 1979, p. 24, note 63

The phenomenon has long been familiar.   In a study conducted for the group of historians who enlisted in the service of the U.S. government in World War I, Victor S. Clark concluded that the "voluntary co-operation of the newspaper publishers of America resulted in a more effective standardization of the information and arguments presented to the American people, than existed under the nominally strict military control exercised in Germany."
Noam  Chomsky and Edward S. Herman
Source: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, 1979, p. 24, note 64    

The mass media everywhere tend to serve the important interests that dominate the state and select and suppress facts so as to convey the impression that national policy is well-intentioned and justified. Much the same is true, quite commonly, of those areas of academic scholarship that deal with contemporary affairs or social issues. The difference between a society with official censorship (e.g. the Soviet Union) and one without (the United States) is real and significant, but the extent and especially the policy consequences of such differences are often overrated. There is a corresponding tendency to underestimate the significance of self-censorship and the strength of the underlying factors that make for unified mass media support for foreign policy-notably, the force of nationalism, government pressure and resources, and the overlap and community of interest among government, media, and business leaders, who jointly dominate state policy-making. Thus, if the dominant interests of a free society call for a policy of foreign aggression, the mass media will voluntarily mobilize the population as effectively as under a fully censored system.
Noam  Chomsky and Edward S. Herman
Source: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, 1979, p. 24

"If this be treason, make the most of it..."
Patrick Henry, cir. 1765

"When governments fear people, there is liberty.  When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. 
Thomas Jefferson

- GUNS,  2nd Amendment -


Que mad moeum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."
("A sword is never a killer, it's a tool in the killer's hands.")
Lucius Annaeus Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD)




"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
President Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950)

 "The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."
Thomas Jefferson

"And what country can preserve it's liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms ... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Thomas Jefferson

"No free men shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Papers





"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense..."
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 28




"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms..."
Richard Henry Lee, 1788, Member of the First U.S. Senate.

"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..."
Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Peirce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850. 2, col. 2.




 "Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the state."
Heinrich Himmler.


"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference -- they deserve a place of honor with all that is good."
George Washington

“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”
George Washington

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story of the John Marshall Court

"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege."
Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878

"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
Senator Hubert H. Humprey (D-Minnesota)

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
Mahatma Gandhi




"The one weapon every man, soldier, sailor, or airman should be able to use effectively is the rifle. It is always his weapon of personal safety in an emergency, and for many it is the primary weapon of offense and defense. Expertness in its use cannot be overemphasized."
General Dwight D. Eisenhower

 “Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket that is fired, signifies--in the final sense--a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, as only one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 1953.
U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)

"Before God I swear this is my creed: my rifle and myself are the defenders of our country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!!
From "My Rifle", by Major General W.H. Rupertus, USMC.

"The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation."
Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United 'States (1856-1924)


...to disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them..."
George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380.


Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."
Noah Webster, "An Examination into the leading Principles of the Federal Constitution."
in Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States , at 56 (New York, 1888).

"... if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?"
Delegate Sedgewick, during the Massachusetts Convention, rhetorically asking if an oppressive standing army could prevail ...
Johnathon Elliot, ed., Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Vol. 2 at 97 (2d ed., 1888)


"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in Federalist Paper No. 46, at 243-244.

 "The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone."
James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in Federalist Paper No. 46.

 "A government that does not trust it's law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is itself unworthy of trust."
James Madison, Federalist Papers


"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear private arms."
Tench Coxe, in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution." under the pseudonym,
"A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 Col. 1.

 "Congress have no power to disarm the militia .... Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.
Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gezette Feb. 20, 1788

"... the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
Tench Coxe in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution." Under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1.



"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all the world would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside...Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived the use of them..."
Thomas Paine, I Writings of Thomas Paine at 56 (1894)

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
Patrick Henry, 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d Ed. Philadelphia, 1836.


"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals ... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has the right to deprive them of."
Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789.

"This Year Will Go Down In History. For The First Time, A Civilized Nation Has Full Gun Registration! Our Streets Will Be Safer, Our Police More Efficient, And The World Will Follow Our Lead Into The Future!"
Adolph Hitler 1935 'Berlin Daily' (Loose English Translation) April 15th, 1935 Page 3 Article 2 by Einleitung Von Eberhard Beckmann "Abschied vom Hessenland!"

"All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ... The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every responsible opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above-named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government."
SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933.


"...that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe that just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms..."
Samuel Adams

"Mr. Madison has introduced his long expected amendments... The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people." . Fisher Ames of Massachusetts



"They are the most armed — and most free people in Europe."
Niccolo Machiavelli, (comment about the Swiss).


An armed society is a polite society.   Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
Robert A. Heinlein


Why The Gun In Civilization?






By

Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force.

If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.

The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force.

It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret.)
6/14/2007
~~~~~~~~~~~



"Enlighten people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
Thomas Jefferson

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: In Congress, July 4, 1776, THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA : 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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another; there is no other source from which State power can be drawn.
Albert Jay Nock: Our Enemy, the State, 1935

"The right of personal liberty is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed to every citizen, and any unlawful interference with it may be resisted.  Every person has a right to resist an unlawful arrest; and, in preventing such illegal restraint of his liberty, he may use such force as may be necessary."
City of Monroe v. Ducas, 203 La. 971, 979, 14 So.2d 781, 784 (1943).
See also Lyons v. Carroll, 107 La. 471, 31 So. 760 (1902).

Writing in the book about his song “The Art of Dying,” Harrison instructed: “We have to first not create more Karma-that is, more actions and reactions-like throwing a pebble into a clear lake, the ripples keep on going. Every thought, word, action or deed that we have is like sending a ripple out across the universe and it does eventually come back. Whatever you do, it comes right back on you.
                            
“So, first of all is the process of trying not to create big reactions-you see ‘Apple’ and the ‘Beatles,’ the whole trip we have gone through, has been like throwing boulders into the lake-because everything comes bouncing back and ties you up forever, or for as long as it takes to untie it… I don’t want to be lying there as I’m dying thinking, ‘Oh shit, I forgot to put the cat out, or ‘I didn’t get a Rolls Royce’ because then you may have to come right back just to do those things.”
George Harrison


"I will say, then, that I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." 
Abraham Lincoln

The very words of his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation revealed his deceit and cunning; it freed those slaves held "within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States."  It didn't apply to slaves in West Virginia and areas and states not in rebellion.

"Good help is so hard to come by these days."
Gen. Ulysses Grant's explanation of why he didn't free his slaves earlier than the enactment of the 13th Amendment.

“Well, fancy giving money to the Government!  Might as well have put it down the drain.”
A. P. Herbert

“I am sure that the party system is right and necessary.   There must be some scum.”
A. P. Herbert


How Paul Robeson answered the following question as he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956:

If you hate America so much, why don't you leave?

"My father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I'm going to stay right here and have a part of it, just like you.   And no fascist-minded people like you will drive me from it.   Is that clear?"

"Whether I am or am not a Communist or a Communist sympathizer is irrelevant.   The question is whether American citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or sympathies, may enjoy their constitutional rights."
Paul Robeson - Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1976, Calendar Section, pp. 1, 58.

Hobson's Choice:

1] an apparent freedom to take or reject something offered when in fact no such
freedom exists: an apparent freedom of choice when there is no real alternative.
[Webster's 3rd International Dictionary]
2] According to Words and Phrases, Hobson's Choice : The very word "election"
signifies a free choice, and an election by compulsion is an anomaly. An election       
which involves no freedom of choice is known as "Hobson's Choice", which is
defined as a choice without an alternative. New v Smith, 145 P 880. There are
updated cases in the commutative supplement pp: 831 FS 1166, 1188; 530 A2d 1044,
1046
Thomas Hobson, a seventeenth-century liveryman in Cambridge, England, told
every customer he could have any horse he wanted, as long as it was the one
nearest the door. Hobson's choice should not be used in the context of dilemma or
mere indecision. It is a choice between what is offered and nothing.

You can have any horse you want outta that bunch, as long as it's the one with three legs laying by the door.


"It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer."
Sir William Blackstone

"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe."
Edmund Burke

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
Samuel Adams

"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Lord Acton



"The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they... have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before.   And the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning.   Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed."
F. A. Hayek   



"The free state offers what a police state denies -- the privacy of the home, the dignity and peace of mind of the individual."
Justice William O. Douglas, 1953

"We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government."
Justice William O. Douglas, 1966


"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead

"...the Federal Judiciary...an irresponsible body, working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing it's noiseless step like a thief over the field of  jurisdiction until all shall be usurped from the States; and the government of all be consolidated into one. When all government ...in little as in great things... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."
Thomas Jefferson, 1821


The essential problem is that Americans have been lying to themselves for so many years now that they are completely incapable of telling the difference between the rather frightening truth and their mythological view of America. –
Neil Postman, author of “Amusing Ourselves to Death”

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile. 
Albert Schweitzer, German philanthropist


There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people. –
Howard Zinn


"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is  hardly too strong to say that the constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." --
Noah Webster

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
George Washington

"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion."
Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall
grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."
President Abraham Lincoln
                   
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Ch. III, "White Blackmail"

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
Thomas Jefferson
                                   
"We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance."
 Japanese Proverb

"There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void.  No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid."
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers No. 78


"Be wary of strong drink.  It can make you shoot at tax collectors -- and miss."
Robert A. Heinlein

No amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free.   No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything.  You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
Robert A. Heinlein

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he doesn't not want, merely because you think it would be good for him.
Robert A. Heinlein

It's is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Robert A. Heinlein

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superiuor to themselves.   Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoild child.
Robert A. Heinlein

Specialization is for insects.
Robert A. Heinlein

You can sway a thousand men by appealing to the prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.
Robert A. Heinlein


"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. President.
Speech, 18 Dec. 1840, to Illinois House of Representatives       
           
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."
Thomas Jefferson ("Statue of Religious Freedom", adopted by the State of Virginia in 1785)

The object with a suit to recover is to provide the incentive to pay or tell how the game is played.
   
"We the people are the rightful masters of Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution." 
Abraham Lincoln

"Now what liberty is this when property can be taken without permission."
Samuel Adams

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason."
Thomas Paine

"History shows us that there have been many struggles between the honest men of England and those that tyrannized them. All good laws come as innovation and as constraints upon the power of the King and Lords."

"We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties."
Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, Council of the Army, Putney Church, 1647

There must be no barriers for freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors."
Robert Oppenheimer

"The particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument."
John Marshall: Opinion as Chief Justice in Marbury vs. Madison, 1802

"[E]very act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid."
Alexander Hamilton

"... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?  The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
Richard Henry Lee, Senator, First Congress, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer (1788) at 169.

"Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789.

“The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.”
John Locke

“Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.”
John Locke, 1690
See the entry in "Black's Law Dictionary" under MIXED WAR.


"The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat, Sir, let it come!"
Patrick Henry, in his famous "The War Inevitable" speech, March, 1775.

"It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that Gentlemen want? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Patrick Henry, in his famous "The War Inevitable" speech, March, 1775.

 "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty.   Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force.   Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined."
Patrick Henry

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walk."
Encyclopedia of Thomas Jefferson, 318 (Foley, Ed., reissued 1967)

"That the Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent "the people" of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..."
Alexander Hamilton

"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense."
Winston Spencer Churchill, address at Harrow School, October 29, 1941.

"Never turn your back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!"
Winston Churchill

"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."
Daniel Webster

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed...a great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men...we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world - no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominent men." .
Abraham Lincoln, shortly before he was assassinated.

"... By calling attention to a well-regulated militia for the security of the Nation, and the right of each citizen to keep and bear arms, our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fear of governmental tyranny, which gave rise to the 2nd amendment, will ever be a major danger to our Nation, the amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic military-civilian relationship, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the 2nd Amendment will always be important." (Ref: AR 12-73 p.14)
John F. Kennedy

"The Hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."
Dante, "The Inferno"

"Liberty's too precious a thing to be buried in history text books."
Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes ...such laws serve rather to encourage than to prevent homocides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
Thomas Jefferson 'Commonplace Book' 1775

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."
P. J. O'Rourke

"They: The makers of the Constitution: conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."
Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1928

"I have sworn upon the altar of Almighty God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Thomas Jefferson

"[A] bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference." . Thomas Jefferson December 20, 1787

"Mind Your Business"
The very first motto on a U.S. Minted Coin

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years." . "It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries." .
David Rockefeller at a Bilderbergers meeting, June 1991 in Baden Baden, Germany.

"The Jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."
John Jay , 1st Chief Justice USSC 1789

"The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts." .
Samuel Chase, USSC, 1796

"The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, USSC 1902

"The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided."
Harlan F. Stone, USSC 1941

"The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of it's prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge." .
US v. Dougherty, 473 F 2nd 1113, 1139, (1972)

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence...From the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable...The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere re- strains evil interference--they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."
George Washington

"On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823

"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. ... The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures."
Thomas Jefferson

"You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe." . John Adams, Second President of the United States



"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun." .
Patrick Henry

"Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put in the hands of Congress?" .
Patrick Henry

"Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
Patrick Henry

"The Constitution shall never be construed....to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." Alexander Hamilton

"Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others. ... The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist Papers at 1848

"The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner." .
Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session ( February 1982 )

"I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon law and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no courts to save it." .
Judge Learned Hand

"One would think by listening to all the propaganda about the United Nations that they are some sort of benevolent, peaceful organization. Never in the history of the United Nations has it stood for anything but killing and violence. They have never kept peace anywhere on this globe. Their sole function is to replace the U.S. military - dissolve all four branches of our armed forces. Their allegiance is only to the United Nations Charter which does not recognize the U.S. Constitution. This body is made up almost exclusively of communists and leaders of the bloodiest regimes on this globe. Their history and operating agenda is apparent to anyone who takes the time to sincerely and with an open mind, research the facts of this organization, separating truth from myth. Bilderberger participants ( another group committed to one-world domination) in 1992 called for "conditioning the public to accept the idea of a U.N. army that could, by force, impose its will on the internal affairs of any nation"
Paul Harvey (Sept.24, 1993)


"How does it become a man to behave toward this American  government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.... Under a government which imprisons any injustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
Henry David Thoreau

I heartily accept the motto, . "That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, . "That government is best which governs not at all;" .and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. . Henry David Thoreau "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"

 "There will never be a free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."
Henry David Thoreau

"GATT represents the New World Order in trade."
Mickey Kantor (Sept. 18, 1994)

"It is in the American interest to put an end to Nationhood. That is the goal in global government. America must get out of the United Nations or our sovereign Republic will not survive." . Walt Rostow (CFR member and United Nations spokesman)

"I think that our American people will welcome a Russian military force for peace-keeping purposes. .
Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) (June 4, 1994, speaking to the Associated Press)

January 25, 1994, California Republican Rep. Robert Dornan responed to Bill Clinton's "State of the Union" speech . "...and by the way, Mr. Speaker, the Second Amendment is not for killing little ducks and leaving Huey and Dewey and Louie without an aunt and uncle. It's for hunting politicians, like in Grozny, and in the colonies in 1776, or when they take your independence away."
January 25, 1994, California . Republican Rep. Robert Dornan Responded to Bill Clinton's "State of the Union" speech

"The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the Americans' freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the Citizen of his plight." .
John F. Kennedy Columbia University 10 days before his assassination

"Everything is in place - after 500 years - to build a true 'new world' in the Western Hemisphere." And what happens if we don't pass Nafta? "I truly don't think that 'criminal' would be too strong a word" for "rejecting Nafta." .
David Rockefeller - Wall Street Journal

"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void." .
Marbury vs.Madison, 5 US (2 Cranch) 137, 174, 176 (1803)

42 USC S 1983: . "Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."

Supreme Court decision (Marbury vs. Madison): . "An Act of Congress repugnant to the Constitution is not law. When the Constitution and an act of Congress are in conflict, the Constitution must govern the case to which both apply. Congress cannot confer on this court any original jurisdiction. The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten is the reason the Constitution was written."

"An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Martin Luther King

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins ... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. .
Thomas Paine _Common Sense_

They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship -- their dictatorship, of course -- can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up. .
Mikhail Bakunin, _Statism and Anarchism_

Crime is contagious; if the government becomes a lawbreaker it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. .
Olmstead v. U.S., 277 US 438.

United States Constitution: Art. IV, sect. 2, paragraph 1: . The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens of the several States. . In other words, if your State acknowledges a right, then where ever you travel, no other state may deny you that right.

". . . by the previous ruling [Brushaber] it was settled that the provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment CONFERRED NO NEW POWER OF TAXATION BUT SIMPLY PROHIBITED the previous complete and plenary power of INCOME TAXATION possessed by Congress from the begining FROM BEING TAKEN OUT OF THE CATEGORY OF INDIRECT TAXATION TO WHICH IT INHERENTLY BELONGED. . . ." .
Stanton v. Baltic Milng Co., 240 U.S. at 112 (1916---

"If Congress sees fit to impose A CAPITATION OR OTHER DIRECT TAX, it must be laid in proportion to the CENSUS, if Congress determines to impose DUTIES, IMPOSTS, AND EXCISES, THEY MUST BE UNIFORM THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES. These are not strictly LIMITATIONS OF POWER. They are rules prescribing the mode in which it shall be exercised." * * * * "This review shows that PERSONAL PROPERTY, CONTRACTS, OCCUPATIONS, AND THE LIKE, HAVE NEVER BEEN REGARDED BY CONGRESS AS PROPER SUBJECTS OF DIRECT TAX. . . ." .
Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wallace 533 (1869)

"..the house of World Order will have to be built from the bottom up rather than the top down... an end run around [American] sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault." .
April, 1974 CFRs "Foreign Affairs," Richard N. Gardner article, "The Hard Road to World Order"

"Much of the contemporary crime that concerns Americans is in poor black neighborhoods, and a case could perhaps be made that greater firearms restrictions might alleviate this tragedy. But another, perhaps stronger, case can be made that a society with a dismal record of protecting a people has a dubious claim on the right to disarm them. Perhaps a re-examination of this history can lead us to a modern realization of what the framers of the Second Amendment understood: that it is unwise to place the means of protection totally in the hands of the state, and that self-defense is also a civil right." .
Robert Cottrol, professor of law at Rutgers (Phd from Yale, JD from Georgetown); Raymond Diamond, professor of law at Tulane (JD, Yale)

10 USC Sec. 311 01/03/95 EXPCITE TITLE 10 Subtitle A PART I CHAPTER 13 Sec. 311. (a) . The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. . (b) The classes of the militia are . (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and . (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia. . SOURCE (Aug. 10, 1956, ch. 1041, 70A Stat. 14; Sept. 2, 1958, Pub. L. 85-861, Sec. 1(7), 72 Stat. 1439; Nov. 30, 1993, Pub. L. 103-160, div. A, title V, Sec. 524(a), 107 Stat. 1656.)

"The history of government management of money has, except for a few short happy periods, been one of incessant fraud and deception." Nobel laureate economist F.A. Hayek

THE BILL OF RIGHTS - Amendment Amendment I - 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.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS - Amendment II - A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS - Amendment III - No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS - Amendment IV - The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS - Amendment V - No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS - Amendment VI - In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS - Amendment VII - In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS - Amendment VIII - Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS - Amendment IX - The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS - Amendment X - The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

From Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address March 4th 1801

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethern of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the fill tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

In his Report to the House of Representatives that same year, Gallatin summed up the reasons for America's prosperity: "No  cause . . . has perhaps more promoted in every respect the  general prosperity of the United States than the absence of those systems of internal restrictions and monopoly which  continue to disfigure the state of society in other countries. No law exists here directly or indirectly confining man to a  particular occupation or place, or excluding any citizen from any branch he may at any time think proper to pursue. Industry is in every respect perfectly free and unfettered; every species of trade, commerce, art, profession, and manufacture being equally opened to all without requiring any previous regular apprenticeship, admission, or license."
John M. Blum, et al., The National Experience,
Part I (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1963, 1981), p. 213.

"What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a tax gatherer in the United States?" Thomas Jefferson at the close of his 1st term.
James Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and  Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 1 (New York: Bureau  of National Literature, 1897), p. 367.

"There may be even a worse fate. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish  than to live as slaves."
Winston Churchill


During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell

 "Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing."
Eric Arthur Blair or George ORWELL

Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip.  But the really well trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there's no whip.
George Orwell
------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is perfectly plain, however, that the police in this case were, to say the least, not confident that petitioner [392 U.S. 598, 607] was the murder suspect, and that the vagrancy charge here was used as a pretext for holding petitioner for further questioning concerning the murder. This technique, using a minor and imaginary charge to hold an individual, in my judgment deserves unqualified condemnation.8 It is a technique which makes personal liberty and dignity contingent upon the whims of a police officer, and can serve only to engender fear, resentment, and disrespect of the police in the populace which they serve.

The present episode may be an insignificant one and the hurt to petitioner nominal. But the principle that a citizen can defy an unconstitutional act is deep in our system.
Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 532-537. [392 U.S. 598, 614]

When in a recent case (Wright v. Georgia, 373 U.S. 284, 291-292), it was said that "failure to obey the command of a police officer constitutes a traditional form of breach of the peace," we made a qualification: "Obviously, however, one cannot be punished for failing to obey the command of an officer if that command is itself violative of the Constitution."

We should not let those fences of the law be broken down.

The interest of society in apprehending murderers is obviously strong; yet when the manhunt is on, passions often carry the day. I fear the long and short of it is that [392 U.S. 598, 615] an officer's "seizure" of a person on the street, even though not made upon "probable cause," means that if the suspect resists the "seizure," he may then be taken to the police station for further inquisition. That is a terrifying spectacle - a person is plucked off the street and whisked to the police station for questioning and identification merely because he resembles the suspected perpetrator of a crime. I fear that with Terry and with Wainwright we have forsaken the Western tradition and taken a long step toward the oppressive police practices not only of Communist regimes but of modern Iran, "democratic" Formosa, and Franco Spain, with which we are now even more closely allied.
WAINWRIGHT v. CITY OF NEW ORLEANS, 392 U.S. 598 (1968)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The right of personal liberty is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed to every citizen, and any unlawful interference with it may be resisted. Every person has a right to resist an unlawful arrest; and, in preventing such illegal restraint of his liberty, he may use such force as may be necessary."
City of Monroe v. Ducas, 203 La. 971, 979, 14 So.2d 781, 784 (1943).
Lyons v. Carroll, 107 La. 471, 31 So. 760 (1902).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At common law, if a party resisted arrest by an officer without warrant and who had no right to arrest him, and if in the course of that resistance the officer was killed, the offense of the party resisting arrest would be reduced from what would have been murder if the officer had had the right to arrest, to manslaughter. What would be murder if the officer had the right to arrest might be reduced to manslaughter by the very fact that he had no such right. So an officer, at common law, was not authorized to make an arrest without a warrant, for a mere misdemeanor not committed in his presence. 1 Arch. Crim. Pr. [177 U.S. 529, 535] & Pl. 7th Am. ed. 103, note (1); also page 861 and following pages; 2 Hawk. P. C. 129, 8; 3 Russell on Crimes, 6th ed. 83, 84, 97; 1 Chitty's Crim. L.* p 15; 1 East, P. C. chap. 5, p. 328; Derecourt v. Corbishley, 5 El. & Bl. 188; Fox v. Gaunt, 3 Barn & Ad. 798; Reg. v. Chapman, 12 Cox C. C. 4; Rafferty v. People, 69 Ill. 111, 18 Am. Rep. 601; S. C. on a subsequent writ, 72 Ill. 37. If the officer had no right to arrest, the other party might resist the illegal attempt to arrest him, using no more force than was absolutely necessary to repel the assault constituting the attempt to arrest. 1 East, supra.
JOHN BAD ELK v. U S, 177 U.S. 529 (1900)

Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them.
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)










http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/butler1.html

America's Armed Forces:

2. "In Time of Peace": The Army

By

Major General Smedley D. Butler

Originally published in Common Sense, Vol. 4, No. 11 (November, 1935), pp. 8-12.

(NOTE: The Gainesville Florida chapter of Veterans for Peace re-published Gen. Smedley Butler's pamphlet War is a Racket  in June, 1995. Copies are available by sending $5 + $1.50 for mailing to:

Veterans for Peace
PO Box 142562
Gainesville, Fl. 32614

I have bought this edition. It appears to be a shortened form of the five articles from Common Sense, of which I have reproduced most of the second one here. )

I have omitted one section of this article, concerning military debates in the '30s, which is of little contemporary interest. I have also omitted Butler's very isolationist and naive conclusion. If you want the whole article, or the whole series of five articles, please request them from the Inter-Library Loan department of any good library. The International Bibliography of Periodical Literature will give the exact references -- late 1935 to early 1936, in Common Sense.

I have also put some paragraphs in bold face. These are the parts most frequently quoted, in that they document Butler's contention that U.S. policy was imperialist and exploitative, never "defensive," from at least the beginning of the 20th century.

General Smedley D. Butler was the most decorated soldier in American uniform; Commander of the Marine Corps school; and passed over for Marine Corps commandant only because of his increasingly anti-imperialist views.

He was very popular with rank-and-file soldiers and veterans. He strongly defended the "Bonus Marchers", attacked by U.S. troops under General Douglas MacArthur and Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower in Washington DC in 1932.

In an incident whose history is suppressed today, Gen. Butler was approached by representatives of the Morgan Bank who wished him to lead a fascist military coup d'état against the Roosevelt government in 1932. He refused and went to the press. A Congressional investigation was eventually suppressed. See Jules Archer, The Plot to  Seize the White House for a recent, documented version of this cover-up, well-publicized at the time but virtually "blacked out" today!
Grover Furr (Grover Carr Furr III (born April 3, 1944) is an American professor of Medieval English literature at Montclair State University, best known for his books on Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union.)

The New Deal has dealt us a military and naval hand that makes us big time contenders in the war racket.

Events in Ethiopia indicate that all too soon it will be our turn to play the cards. We ought to make a good showing. We're getting plenty of practice.

Our army and navy have only recently completed their largest and most ambitious peace-time maneuvers. Our National Guardsmen have done even better. In the past two years large National Guard forces have seen active service in 20 strikes in as many different states, from the Pacific Coast to New England, from Minnesota to Georgia. They have used gas, bullets, and tanks -- the most lethal weapons of modern war -- against striking workers. Casualty lists have been impressive. In one instance they erected barbed wire concentration camps in Georgia to "co-ordinate" striking workers with all the efficiency of the fascist repressive technique.

There isn't a trick In the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" (to point out enemies), its "muscle men" (to destroy enemies), its "brain guys," (to plan war preparations) and a "Big Boss," (super-nationalistic capitalism).

I Was a "Racketeer"

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to.  I spent 33 years and 4 months In active service as a member of our country's most agile military force -- the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical of everyone in the military service.

Thus I, helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.  The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.

The war racket operates at full swing in our own country today.- Make no mistake. We no longer fulfill by our example as a nation the role of Leader in Disarmament and Peace-Maker to Mankind. Our present war preparations and military expenditures forever nullify the Kellogg Peace Pact to which we subscribed, and all our previous efforts to ease the burden of war throughout the world.

Defense or Offense?

It is commonly supposed that our armed forces are entirely defensive in nature, that they have nothing to do with the making of war or the creating of situations that lead to war. The General Staff states publicly, that the military organization "is founded on the principle that we oust be unready for aggressive war, yet fully capable of defending ourselves... To be defensive in motive, as we intend to be, a nation must surrender all thought of initiative."

If this statement was a fact and effectively translated into reality, there would be little cause for concern. But close examination reveals that it is just another publicity release from that military sap factory known as the War Department.

Training Regulations No. 10-5 of the War Department contain the official "Doctrine of War," for the United States. Section II, paragraph 2, says "Decision to go to war having been made, operations will be carried into hostile territory... the primary objective will be the destruction of (the enemy's) armed forces, and this demands that the strategical and tactical offensive be taken and maintained until a decision is reached." Section V, paragraph 6, says "the object to be attained by (military) training is to enable the Army to wage offensive warfare, While training must cover certain phases of defensive doctrine and police doctrine the Army must definitely understand hat these are only means to the definite end -- offensive warfare -- and every individual in the military service must be imbued with the spirit of the offensive."

Our Ideal Never Defensive

Lest this seem to be the bellicose pipedream of some dyspeptic desk soldier, let us remember that the military deal of our country has never been defensive warfare. Since the Revolution, only the United Kingdom has beaten our record for square miles of territory acquired by military conquest. Our exploits against the American Indian, against the Filipinos, the Mexicans, and against Spain are on a par with the campaigns of Genghis Khan, the Japanese in Manchuria and the African attack of Mussolini. No country has ever declared war on us before we first obliged them with that gesture. Our whole history shows we have never fought a defensive war. And at the rate our armed forces are being implemented at present, the odds are against our fighting one in the near future.

The War Plans Section spends all its time creating blue-prints for the "defense" of this country. This means, of course, vast schemes for foreign invasion and offensive war. The personnel of this division are those whose hides will never be scratched should hostilities occur. Consequently they can devise plans of whatever magnitude they fancy, and against any momentary "enemy." Nothing troubles them; and, as we shall soon see, such a detail as how their next war is going to be paid for is not even considered.

Lloyd's odds on the United States being invaded by a foreign power are 500 to 1 against it. Only the most powerful of coalitions could dream of it -- and unless Great Britain were the spearhead of that coalition even the dream would be a waste of time. Without England's navy, merchant marine and her resources of rubber, nickel, coal and oil, a world coalition would make a hell of a showing! Of course they might capture Guam, Wake Island and even perhaps Hawaii and the Panama Canal. But what serious threat from any quarter can be foreseen on even the most distant horizon?

No. Devising plans for the "defense" of our country, maintaining an army to fulfill those plans and preaching a "defensive doctrine" resolves itself into military hogwash. Actually our armed forces have up to date plans for offensive warfare against almost every country on the globe -- all in the sacred name of "national defense." Should  some affront be given to our national honor by Japan, say, there is a plan ready to be put in operation against the Japanese. Should the French run all the Americans out of Paris and say "Lafayette, we are here," a different plan would be pulled from its pigeon hole and we could proceed against the French. And the same for almost any nation you might care to name,

Bigger and Better War Plans

The musical comedy angle of such planning is obvious. It entails, for one thing, the sending of large numbers of our boys abroad as in 1918. It means creating an offensive fighting machine once more. Sound military doctrine, no doubt, and quite in keeping with the European strategy. But viewed coldly, it seems to be little more than the adoption of the military jitters exhibited by foreign nations so situated that their borders are forever threatened with invasion. The opinion of Mr. John A. Public would be that we are acting like damn fools.

None the less our military finger men keep busy pointing out enemies and making bigger and better war plans. The gold braid boys are reliable puppets, obeying the string-pulling of their bosses and bowing to imperialist expediency whenever commanded.

Naturally, the military become anxious to try out these war plans. Obviously they cannot invade other countries. They can't even, like the Navy, hold exercises thousands of miles from our shores and as close to Japan as possible. Rut the Army can and does share in doubtful gestures toward our Eastern neighbor. Alaskan sites are being surveyed for possible air bases. The Matanushka Valley settlement has a significant military value especially now that it has been placed under the care of Lt. Col. L. P. Hunt, active Marine Corps officer. The Aleutian Islands are being plotted for their military potentialities

Within recent years, our military "finger men" have added a new slant to their work by screaming about the danger of attacks against the United States. Before an executive meeting of the House Military Affairs Committee, the Army pointed out how vulnerable we were to an air attack from Canada which would sweep down upon the vast industrial districts from Pittsburgh to Chicago. still more harrowing to them was the thought of an air and water attack by way of the \Vest Indies or of Alaska. All these little horror-dreams did not, however, get into the press.

What did get into the press was the fact that in the Wilcox bill providing for new air bases, a location just south of the Canadian border was one of the points selected. When we recall that in all our history the Canadian border was never fortified with anything stronger than a line of cement markers, we can understand the type of "grand strategy" the "finger men" are grinding out in Washington.

Function of the Air Force

Of course, these and similar activities have their effect in influencing national policy. For instance, the Wilcox Bill was passed on July 20, 1936, and duly signed by the President. The action of the Treasury Department in providing gold vaults at points far from both the eastern and western coast lines is another symptom of the military hysteria engendered by these plans. Once we get all our gold buried near army posts in the interior, our air bases built and all the other plans of the planners perfected, an arrogant spirit of nationalism will be the logical
outgrowth. Quite properly we will be able to adopt the chip-on-the-shoulder attitude and be ready to release all the destructive forces we have so diligently created.

First to release these destructive forces will be the "strong arm boys" -- the aviators. This branch of the armed forces, however, is hardly ready to go out on short notice to do its stuff. It has spent so much time fighting for self-preservation against the vested interest of the foot-soldiers and their civilian well-wishers that it is almost too exhausted to fight at all. In addition the aviators fight among themselves over policy, procurement and training.

(PART OF THE ARTICLE IS OMITTED HERE. THE FOLLOWING SECTION DETAILS BUTLER'S CHARGES AGAINST US MILITARY INTELLIGENCE)

Their Domestic Role

The import of these military inteIligence reports can best be judged by the homework of military intelligence. The domestic brand of M. I. is mainly unadulterated Red hunting. Hence intelligence officers cooperate more or less openly with such bulwarks of home defense as !William Randolph Hearst, Ralph Easley, Harry Jung of Chicago, and such organizations as the National Security League, the American Vigilantes and the Order of '76.

The intelligence men further justify their jobs by spy work on radical gatherings, by attending pubIic forums in an attempt to detect political or economic heresy, by keeping tabs on various suspects, and by smelling out what they consider to be subversive activities everywhere. In these extra-curricular activities whole-hearted cooperation from professional patrioteers and the Reserve Officers is received. In the New York area, for instance, the military intelligence officers are especially busy. With the 2nd Corps Area headquarters at Governor's Island off the Battery, and the Headquarters of the Communist party near Union Square, the intelligence men work like little beavers. Radical meetings are attended, notes taken, speakers listed, and as many of the audience identified as possible. It is well known in liberal and radical circles that the military intelligence units have been planting men within suspected organizations. Often the "plant" appears in uniform carrying a radical publication and pretends to be a backslider for the benefit of the Reds. Other times, he operates as the following from the columns of the New York
Herald-Tribune of July 12th, 1933, explains:

     "Madison, Wis. (C:P). The United States Secret Service was supplied with information
     regarding the activity of communists at the University of Wisconsin. William H. Haight,
     Jr., nineteen years old, a student and Reserve Officer's Training Corps member told a
     legislators' investigation committee here.

     "Haight said he had been assigned to supply... information regarding communistic
     activity at Chicago and later continued his work here."

Every so often some regular, National Guardsman or retired officer gets so fed up with the absurdities of the military intelligence, that he cannot longer view this degradation of his profession without protesting. But in order to save his skin he must take the cloak of anonymity. For instance, on August Ist, 1932, one nameless Reservist was unable to stomach the War Department's ousting of the Bonus Army and subsequent comment by M.I.N.I., the columnist for the "Army and Navy Journal" upon the event. M.I.N.I. lumped the veterans of the Bonus Army with communists "and others of like ilk" and lauded General MacArthur for saving the country from the Red Menace. The nameless Reserve officer wrote the N. Y. Times, in part as follows:

     "Who 'M.I.N.I.' may be I do not know, but if by any chance those letters should stand
     for 'military intelligence, naval intelligence,' would anybody be greatly surprised? The
     kind of intelligence that could produce such inconceivable rot is unhappily too much
     like the kind of intelligence that before now has been observed to distinguish our
     military and naval thinkers."

Supplies for the Next War

Now should the "finger" and "muscle" and "brain" men get the country all set for another war where mould we Get the supplies? Here is a question, the answer to which is very reassuring. Since the National Defense Act of 1920 the Procurement Planning division of the War Department has been busy surveying the industry of the country and its potential manufacturing capacity for war purposes. Thousands of factories have been visited and the manufacture of 2,500 articles in gigantic quantities for an army of several million men has been fully plotted.

The diversity of the articles touches virtually every industry; from breakfast food to boiler plates. The amounts run, in estimated first costs, to several billions of dollars --sufficient to boom industry to new levels, to give impetus to a new maritime inflation and to create a new batch of millionaires equal to those of the past war.

But there is just one little flaw in this vast procurement plan of the army's. They haven't bothered to figure out any way to pay for all the thousands of tons of articles and raw materials needed. In their procurement work they have devised a dummy contract with all the various manufacturers ... but this contract does not specify price, payment or credit arrangements.

These contracts are of inestimable value to the War Department. Every manufacturer who has one, who has had his factory surveyed, his production capacity noted and his "M"-Day orders delivered, is a great big booster for the military. The fortunate industrialist! He knows that as soon as hostilities break out there will be nice fat orders to keep his factories running for some time. Indeed, he senses that a demand for more active war preparations would cause a good share of these contracts to be executed at once. The aircraft manufacturers and the shipbuilding industry, thanks to New Deal public works money have already learned this lesson. They wax fat -- fatter than ever before in peace time.

Profiteering, Past and Future

Not only have the procurement plans of the army convinced the minds of industry that war means more and bigger business, but the War Department in the years since the war has looked slightingly at any attempt to in introduce legislation that would limit profits and impose higher taxes on war earnings. In 1931 the War Department before the War Policies Commission declared publicly that a 6% return upon invested capital in wartime was a fair return. Everything above that might be taxed in varying degrees. The army favored the Baruch plan to freeze prizes and put a "ceiling" on the price structure upon the outbreak of war in an effort to prevent profiteering.

As the Senate Munitions Committee pointed out, the freezing of prices -- with upward adjustments allowable to increase production -- would not accomplish its purpose. The Senate Committee showed that fixed prices slowed down production and that the threat of high taxes made it possible for industry to secure the necessary working capital. The alternative of attempting to commandeer industry and forcing it to produce at fixed prices in a proper manner is often more expensive to the government than paying high prices for the material in the first place. Says the report of the Senate Committee on price control, page 4: "During the War the copper industry simply refused to produce at even the liberal prices first proposed by the government. The steel industry similarly refused to fill government orders until prices had been stabilized at levels satisfactory to the industry. The du Pont Company refused to build a great powder plant which it alone was qualified to build until it was assured of what is considered sufficient profits. Mr. Pierre du Pont wrote that "we cannot assent to allowing our patriotism to interfere with our duties as trustees."

At the Mercy of Capitalism

The Senate report continues: "The government is more at the mercy of a strike by capital than at the mercy of a strike by labor. The War Department bills which have been prepared for adoption upon the outbreak of war, provide in effect that labor can be drafted and that men must either work or fight. With these powers and with a whole labor pool to draw on in the form of the conscript army, there is no question that the Army can break any labor strike. (The Army) is in no similar situation in regard to a strike by capital or management... .A strike (of capital) is neither open nor advised. It was not until the hearings of this committee, some 17 or 18 years after the event, that the strikes of certain of our industrial companies in connection with war-time price fixing became known."

In other words this means that the War Department and the government, under the present law, is at the mercy of the rulers of industry and finance. The contracts of the War Department for future war supplies exist -- industry will have its own way about profits.

General MacArthur's final report as Chief of Staff comments on the 45,000 men just added to the regular forces and the amount of new equipment needed in the next five years to make this new force effective. Of course, little was said about needing new equipment when the man-power increment was requested. But now new apparatus for motorization, mechanization, armament artillery, ammunition and chemical warfare must be had. In a short while we will see the War Department revise itself -- it will need still more men to man the equipment purchased.

Either the army is undermanned -- or under-equipped. Indeed, there is not a general in active service today who would dare state that we are properly armed. The appetites of the military for new material, for more men is insatiable.

Add up these phases of the war racket we harbor and encourage, and the result is a pretty picture. We support armed forces that have all the evils of the old-time European prussianized military systems. They point out "enemies" for us. The speediest and most deadly branch, the Air Corps, is engaged in activities liable to drag us into a world crisis. The intelligence branch of the army is engaged in collecting useless and incendiary information abroad and in reprehensible activities at home. And industry has been invited into partnership with our armed forces so that the advent of war cannot be less than welcome to it,

What is the Answer?

The correction of these evils is our immediate duty. We must deny to our armed forces the functions of diplomats, politicians and agents provocateur. To do this means reorienting the military both in location and in policy as well. Our entire doctrine of war must be restated as a defensive doctrine in theory and adhered to in practice.

(The conclusion of Butler's article -- isolationist -- is omitted here).         
                                      
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Martin Luther King Jr.

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine

Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain.
~Aristotle 

I've learned that everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.
Anonymous

Let this be an example for the acquisition of all knowledge, virtue, and riches.  By the fall of drops of water, by degrees, a pot is filled.
The Hitopadesa 

Knowledge is simply knowing when to laugh.
Duane McCormick

I respect no study and deem no study good, which results in money~making.
Seneca

"The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners."
Florence King

Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three.
Confucius

Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school. And the one man that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.
Plato

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves "who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of the Universe. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do... we were born to make manifest the Universe that is within us. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson

In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.
Louis Pasteur

It's not my place to run the train, the whistle I cannot blow.
It's not my place to say how far the train's allowed to go.
It's not my place to shoot off steam, nor even clang the bell.
But let the damn thing jump the track and see who catches hell.

You can count the number of seeds in an apple, but you can't count the number of apples in a seed.

Why you? Because the world will end if you don't act. You are the citizen of a flawed but actual democracy. Citizens are not actually capable of not acting....Your life is married to the political beyond the possibility of divorcement.

You are always an agent. When you don't act, you act. When you don't vote, you vote. When you accept the loony logic of some of the left that there is no political value in supporting the lesser of two evils, you open the door to the greater evil.
Tony Kushner, Commencement Speech at Vassar College, May 26, 2002

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.
Dr. Linus Pauling

There's no national glue holding us together because somebody put too much pluribus in the unum.
Florence King

A problem worthy of attacks Proves its worth by hitting back.
Paul Erdos

Teachers should be able to teach subjects, not manuals merely.
Horace Mann

Those who trust us educate us.
George Eliot

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying."
Sir Thomas Moore

I AM NOT IN COMPLIANCE
George Carlin

"Who cares what you think?"
President George W. Bush, July 4, 2001

"To live is to war with trolls."
Ibsen

It is when the gods hate a man with uncommon abhorrence that they drive him into the profession of a school~master
Seneca

Lasting change does not happen overnight. Lasting change happens in infinitesimal increments: a day, an hour, a minute, a heartbeat at a time.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
Wilson Mizner

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.  It takes a touch of genius ~ and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. ~E. F. Schumacher

Americans worship creativity the way they worship physical beauty ~ as a way of enjoying elitism without guilt: God did it.
Florence King

"Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher."
Parker Palmer

"What I'm asking people to do is simply this: In your own way, in your own life, every day, you are confronted with a piece of data. Don't just eat it up. Just think about it for a minute. You have the right to process your own information based on the equipment that you were born with. That's your right. That's real freedom. You have the right to make up your own mind. Now, if you choose to numb yourself, and to be bamboozled, you have the right to be bamboozled. But in your state of bamboozlement, you do not have the right to be a liability, because of your self-imposed ignorance, on other people who might want to do things the right way. If you voluntarily choose to be a numbskull, for whatever reason you have chosen it, that's fine. You have the right to be stupid, but you don't have the right to harm other people as a result of your stupidity. And you don't have the right to legislate your stupidity into existence, to force it on other people who have a clearer view of what things are."
Frank Zappa

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."
T.S. Eliot

If we all work together, we can totally disrupt the system.
Ashleigh Brilliant

Be kind to teachers; those who do not deserve your respect, may at least deserve your pity.
Ashleigh Brilliant

While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.
Henry C. Link

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
William Jennings Bryan

What luck for rulers, that men do not think.
Adolf Hitler

When the sun of knowledge stands low even dwarves throw big shadows.
Markus Fuchs

Learning why an idea fails is just as important as knowing why it works.
Roman Szpur

I never taught language for the purpose of teaching it; but invariably used language as a medium for the communication of thought; thus the learning of language was coincident with the acquisition of knowledge.
Annie Sullivan

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.
Fred Rogers

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
~E.B. White

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.
Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr

The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth open.
Günter Grass

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.
Leonardo Da Vinci

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase... the human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.
Frank Herbert

I must create a system, or be enslav'd by another man's.
William Blake

Education can be dangerous. It is very difficult to make it not dangerous. In fact, it is almost impossible.
Robert M. Hutchins

What is to give light must endure burning.
Viktor Frankl
 
When small men cast long shadows the sun is going down.
Venita Cravens

To escape criticism ~ Do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
Elbert Hubbard

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamer of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea~breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World~losers and world~forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy

The most extraordinary thing about a really good teacher is that he or she transcends accepted educational methods.
Margaret Mead

No hay nada más fecundo que la ignorancia consciente de sí misma.
José Ortega y Gasset

The first idea that the child must acquire in order to be actively disciplined is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.
María Montessori


It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
Alfred North Whitehead

All advanced thinkers, skeptical or otherwise, are apt to be intolerant, in the past and also now. On the whole, tolerance is more often found in connection with a genial orthodoxy.
Alfred North Whitehead

Imagination is a contagious disease. It cannot be measured by the yard, or weighed by the pound, and then delivered to the students by members of the faculty. It can only be communicated by a faculty whose members themselves wear their learning with imagination.
Alfred North Whitehead

Too many apples from the tree of systematized knowledge lead to the fall of progress.
Alfred North Whitehead

You may not divide the seamless coat of learning. What education has to impart is an intimate sense for the power of ideas, for the beauty of ideas, and for the structure of ideas, together with a particular body of knowledge which has peculiar reference to the life of the being possessing it.
Alfred North Whitehead

The students are alive, and the purpose of education is to stimulate and guide their self~development. It follows as a corollary from this premise, that the teachers also should be alive with living thoughts.
Alfred North Whitehead

Teach Good, Fight Hard, Grow Love
Rich Gibson

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.
G.K. Chesterton

The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."
Maria Montessori

Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
Joseph Stalin

I see the mind of a 5~year~old as a volcano with two vents: destructiveness and creativeness.
Sylvia Ashton Warner

Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
E. M. Forster

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle

No woman is required to build the world by destroying herself.
Rabbi Sofer (17th Century)

It has been agreed that every man shall have a cow.
We give him half a cow, to be getting on with.
He doesn't know what to do with half a cow, and leaves it lying about.
This proves he didn't really want or need a cow in the first place.
We take it away from him.
~Paraphrased from G. K. Chesterton


    You must be

true to yourself.

    Strong enough to be

true to yourself.

    Brave enough to be

    strong enough to be

true to yourself.

    Wise enough to be

    brave enough to be

    strong enough to

    shape yourself from what

 you actually are.

Sylvia Ashton Warner (in Myself)

 "They do say," Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, "that over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery."

Old Man Warner snorted. "Pack of crazy fools," he said. "Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery," he added petulantly.  "Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody."
"Some places have already quit lotteries."
Mrs. Adams said.

"Nothing but trouble in that," Old Man Warner said stoutly. "Pack of young fools."
Shirley Jackson

"Wherever they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn people."
~Heinrich Heine

The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done ~ men who are creative, inventive and discoverers.
Jean Piaget

The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education.
Paul Karl Feyerabend

I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.
Anne Sullivan

Expecting all children the same age to learn from the same materials is like expecting all children the same age to wear the same size clothing.
Madeline Hunter

The one real goal of education is to leave a person asking questions.
Max Beerhohm

Schooling, instead of encouraging the asking of questions, too often discourages it.
Madeleine L'Engle

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea.
Richard Hofstadter

As we read the school reports on our children, we realize a sense of relief that can rise to delight that~thank Heaven~nobody is reporting in this fashion on us.
J.B. Priestley

Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with," the Mock Turtle replied, "and then the different branches of Arithmetic ~Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.
Lewis Carroll

Fool some one once and they'll be foolish for a day, but teach them to fool themselves and they'll be foolish for a lifetime.

“Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.”
~Fahrenheit 451

To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains.
Mary Pettibone Poole, A Glass Eye at a Keyhole, 1938

Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing.  Its false
resemblance to merit deceives men.  For the masses, success has almost
the same profile as supremacy.
Victor Hugo

While children's perceptions of the world and opportunities for genuine spontaneity and creativity are being systematically eliminated from the kindergarten, unquestioned obedience to authority and rote learning of meaningless material are being encouraged
Harry L. Gracey, sociologist

Of course, Behaviorism "works." So does torture. Give me a no~nonsense, down~to~earth behaviorist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.
W. H. Auden

I think my deepest criticism of the educational system at that period [junior high and high school], and that also applies to other periods, is that it's all based upon a distrust of the student. Don't trust him to follow his own leads; guide him; tell him what to do; tell him what he should think; tell him what he should learn. Consequently at the very age when he should be developing adult characteristics of choice and decision making, when he should be trusted on some of those things, trusted to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes, he is, instead, regimented and shoved into a curriculum, whether it fits him or not.
Carl Rogers

If anything concerns me, it's the oversimplification of something as complex as assessment. My fear is that learning is becoming standardized. Learning is idiosyncratic. Learning and teaching is messy stuff. It doesn't fit into bubbles.
Michele Forman, 2001 Teacher of the Year

When we judge a man not by his car but by his conversation, not by his house but by his books, we may have a land fit for teachers to live in.
Hilda Neatby

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
Alvin Toffler

"Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with," the Mock Turtle replied (to the question of what was taught in school), "and then the different branches of Arithmetic ~ Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision." 
Lewis Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

To exploit us, they measure us. To control us, they measure us.
Subcomandante Marcos

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will.  If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
Frederick Douglass

Skills~based instruction, the type to which most children of color are subjected, tends to foster low~level uniformity and subvert academic potential.
Dorothy Strickland

Teacher preparation should never be reduced to a form of training. Rather, teacher preparation should go beyond the technical preparation of teachers and be rooted in the ethical formation both of selves and of history. But it is important to be clear that I am speaking not about a restricted kind of ethics that shows obedience only to the law of profit. On the contrary, I am speaking of a universal human ethic, an ethic that is not afraid to condemn the kind of ideological discourse I have just cited. Not afraid to condemn the exploitation of labor and the manipulation that makes a rumor into truth and truth into a mere rumor.
Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy and Civic Courage

Learning without thought is labor lost.
Confucius

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
Nietzsche

"Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action."                
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Look around the table.  If you don't see a sucker, get up, because you're the sucker.
Amarillo Slim

The plural of the word ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data.’ When you reason and govern from anecdote, all you are doing is inflaming passions and skewing the debate.
Larry Bensky

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men.
Abraham Lincoln

"[T]he rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitive. In the long run basic results in influencing public opinion will be achieved only by the man who is able to reduce problems to the simplest terms and who has the courage to keep forever repeating them in this simplified form, despite the objections of the intellectuals."
Josef Goebbels

"The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan."
Adolf Hitler, from Mein Kampf

 "The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category."
Adolf Hitler

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think they'll hate you. 
Don Marquis


"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence."
Charles A. Beard


It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant, or a scapegoat.
Richard Hofstadter: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, 1963 ::

"Intelligence is an excellence of mind that is employed within a fairly narrow, immediate, and predictable range... Intelligence works within the framework of limited but clearly stated goals, and may be quick to shear away questions of thought that do not seem to help in reaching them."

"... Intellect, on the other hand, is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of mind. Whereas intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re~order, adjust, intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes, imagines."
Richard Hofstadter

American education can be praised, not to say defended, on many counts; but I believe ours is the only system in the world vital segments of which have fallen into the hands of people who joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise.
Richard Hofstadter

"Observers of American academia have often asked with some bitterness why athletic distinction is almost universally admired and encouraged whereas intellectual distinction is resented. I think the resentment is in fact a kind of backhanded tribute democracy plays to the importance of intellect in our affairs. Athletic skill is recognized as being transient, special, and for most of us unimportant in the serious business of life; and the tribute given the athlete is considered to be earned because he entertains. Intellect, on the other hand, is neither entertaining (to most men) nor innocent; since everyone sees that it can be an important and permanent advantage in life, it creates against itself a kind of universal fraternity of commonplace minds."
R. Hofstadter

"If you think you are beaten~you are.
If you think that you dare not~you don't.
If you'd like to win, but fear you can't
It's fifty to one you won't."

Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.
Graham Greene

It's not what is poured into a student that counts, but what is planted.
Linda Conway

Learning from programmed information always hides reality behind a screen.
Ivan Illich

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Walter Lippmann


"I put no stock in religion.   By the word religion I've seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of God.   I've seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers.  Holiness is in right action."
Scene in:  Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Written by:  William Monahan,  Actor:  David Thewlis

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
Oscar Wilde

Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown~ups will obstinately persist, if only now and then, in composing small strings of sentences in their heads and achieving at least momentary logic. This probably cannot be prevented, but we have learned how to minimize the consequences by arranging that such grown~ups will be unable to pursue that logic very far. If they were at home in the technology of writing, there's no telling how much social disorder they would cause by thinking things out at length.

Our schools have chosen to cut this danger off as close to the root as possible, thus taking measures to preclude not only the birth of thought but its conception. They give the pill to even the youngest children, but just to be on the safe side, they give it to everybody else, too, especially all would~be schoolteachers.
Richard Mitchell
 
There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous."
Hannah ARENDT

"He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still."
Samuel BUTLER

"Either you think ~ or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you."
F. Scott FITZGERALD
Tender is the Night, 1934

I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a prisoner and on my knees, and before your Eminencies, having before my eyes the Holy Gospel, which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse, and detest the error and the heresy of the movement of the earth."
Galileo GALILEI
 
"One has to multiply thoughts to the point where there aren't enough policemen to control them."
Stanislaw Jerzey LEC

"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas."
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin

"If they give you lined paper, write the other way."
William Carlos Williams

"If my answers frighten you Vincent, then you should cease asking scary questions.
Samuel L. Jackson as Jules in _Pulp Fiction
 
I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.
 Vincent Van Gogh
 
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze new problems, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. ~
Robert A. Heinlein

The funny thing about human beings is that we tend to respect the intelligence of, and eventually to like, those who listen attentively to our ideas even if they continue to disagree with us.
S.I. Hayakawa

"It's good to be open~minded, but not so open that your brains fall out."
Jacob Needleman
 
A hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong.

Everything not forbidden is compulsory.

"To be nobody~but~myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting."  
E. E. Cummings

"The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honor you can bestow on him. It means that you recognize his superiority to yourself."  
Joseph Sobran
 
"If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for what we really are."
Capt. Jean Luc Picard
 
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." ~
T. S. Eliot

The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Steve Biko
 
Both read the Bible day and night~ But you read black where I read white 
William Blake
 
Whenever citizens are seen routinely as enemies of their own government, writers are routinely seen to be the most dangerous enemies
E.L. Doctorow

Precious few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
Albert Einstein

With the affairs of active human beings it is different. Here knowledge of truth alone does not suffice; on the contrary this knowledge must continually be renewed by ceaseless effort, if it is not to be lost. It resembles a statue of marble which stands in the desert and is continuously threatened with burial by the shifting sands. The hands of science must ever be at work in order that the marble column continue everlastingly to shine in the sun. To those serving hands mine also belong.
Albert Einstein

Truth is that which confirms what we already believe. 
Northrop Frye

The accepted ideas of any period are singularly those that serve the dominant economic interest...What economists believe and teach, whether in the United States or in the Soviet Union, is rarely hostile to the institutions ~ the private business enterprise, the Communist Party ~ that reflect the dominant economic power. Not to notice this takes effort, although many succeed.
John Kenneth Galbraith

How to tell students what to look for without telling them what to see is the dilemma of teaching.
Lascelles Abercrombie

Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort.
Marshall McLuhan

Every view of things that is not strange is false.
Paul Valéry

Let no one believe ... that the many are so exhausted by activities dictated by the need for earning a living, that freedom of thought is useless to them, or even disturbing. Or that they can best be activated by the diffusion of principles handed down from on high, while their freedom to think and to investigate is restricted
Wilhelm Von Humboldt

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."
Charles A. Beard (1874 -1948)

"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."
James Bovard, (1994)

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
Justice Louis Brandeis (1928)

"Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful.... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race."
Charles Bradlaugh ~ (English reformer ~ 1890)

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
John Bradshaw

I'm for prayer in the schools because ritual and ceremony are calming and civilizing, and the little fartlings should be tamped down whenever possible.
Florence King

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
Edmund Burke ~ (British statesman ~ 1756)

The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth.
William Jefferson Clinton

It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.
Jacob Bronowski
 
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin (1755)

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom."
 Albert Einstein (1950)
 
"No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom."
Mahatma Ghandi
 
"Coercion cannot but result in chaos in the end."
Mahatma Ghandi

"One who uses coercion is guilty of deliberate violence. Coercion is inhuman."
Mahatma Ghandi
 
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
Goethe

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
Barry Goldwater
 
"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." 
Barry Goldwater

"The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, whether by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable." 
Ulysses S. Grant

Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom."
F. A. Hayek, winner of Nobel Prize for Economics

"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
Robert A. Heinlein

"We must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left to us!...Why stand we here idle? What is it that the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Patrick Henry
 
"If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all."
Jacob Hornberger (1995)

"A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
Thomas Jefferson  letter (to James Madison, 1787)

"I have sworn on the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
Thomas Jefferson  (1800)

"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Fifty~one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic."
Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn

"I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights."
Abraham Lincoln

"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."
Abraham Lincoln

"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted."
 James Madison

"I believe that there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment than by violent and sudden usurpations." ~James  James Madison

What people need and what they want may be very different....Teachers are those who educate the people to appreciate the things they need.
Elbert Hubbard

"Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."
John Stuart Mill

“When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.
When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent.
When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don’t own a gun.
Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet.”
Lyle Myhr

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."
Pericles (430 BC)

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."
Ayn Rand


The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims.  The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves.
Dresden James

When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.
Dresden James

Education is man's going forward from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.
Kenneth G. Johnson

"The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced."
Frank Zappa

"Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in nursery."
Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister

"Men had better be without education than be educated by their rulers."
 Thomas Hodgskin

"Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control."
Jack Hugh
 
"As for money, the relationship between it and effective schools has been studied to death. The unanimous conclusion is that there is no connection between school funding and school performance."
Brookings Institution scholars John Chubb and Terry Moe, 1990

"As we all learned from the sorry experience of state-sanctioned bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, decentralization is crucial to both freedom and excellence."
Mayor Jerry Brown, on why he opposes unionizing Oakland, California's charter schools.

"Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains."
Rousseau

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke

Whenever people agree with me, I always think I must be wrong.
Oscar Wilde

It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
W. K. Clifford, British philosopher, circa 1876
 
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty not safety."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759

"If I can't dance, then I won't join your revolution."
Emma Goldman

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
Jeannette Rankin

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth; and truth rewarded me.
Sylvia Ashton Warner

What is education? Properly speaking, there is no such thing as education. Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. ... What we need is to have a culture before we hand it down. In other words, it is a truth, however sad and strange, that we cannot give what we have not got, and cannot teach to other people what we do not know ourselves.
G.K. Chesterton

The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.
Martin Buber

Hope isn't a choice, it's a moral obligation, a human obligation, an obligation to the cells in your body....Hope is not naive, hope grapples endlessly with despair.  Real, vivid, powerful, thunderclap hope, like the soul, is at home in darkness, is divided; but lose your hope and you lose your soul....Will the world end if you act? Who can say? Will you lose your soul . . . if you don't act, if you don't organize? I guarantee it. And you will feel really embarrassed at your ten~year class reunion.
Tony Kushner, May 26, 2002 commencement speech at Vassar College

The origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion or doubt.
John Dewey

It is tiresome to hear education discussed, tiresome to educate, and tiresome to be educated.
William Lamb, second Viscount



"We're going to have the best educated American people in the world"
George W. Bush

"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls"
George W. Bush

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it"
George W. Bush

"...there ought to be limits to freedom."
Governor George W. Bush, US presidential candidate

"What, gracious God, is man! that there should be such inconsistency and perfidiousness in his conduct? It is but the other day, that we were shedding our blood to obtain the Constitutions under which we now live; Constitutions of our own choice and making; and now we are unsheathing the sword to overturn them. The thing is so unaccountable, that I hardly know how to realize it, or to persuade myself that I am not under the illusion of a dream."
George Washington to David Humphreys, December 26, 1786. [The George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799].
**********

"Nevertheless, with all these defects, the colony was admirably governed in the main. One great right of freemen, the right of bearing arms, a highly necessary right to men planted suddenly among wild beasts and savages, was certainly not taken from the people. On the contrary, the government took care that all should be duly trained to self-defence. There is no man who bears a head, says Wood, (New Englands Prospect, 1639,) but bears military arms; even boys of fourteen years of age are practised with men in military discipline every three weeks. And they practised to some effect, as the records of the time prove, and as the Pequods learned to their cost."
John Lothrop Motley, (1814–1897). 'Polity of the Puritans'. (Concerning early colonial times).[The North American review. Vol. 69, Issue 145, Oct. 1849]. Son of Thomas Motley, born in Dorchester, Mass. Graduated Harvard in 1831. American historian, and briefly a Secretary of Legation to Russia.
**********

"Depend upon it, that as the spirit of America has always risen with the successes of her enemies, they will not, on this occasion, throw away their arms, and ingloriously pass under the yoke of a nation whose conduct towards her has been marked by injustice and oppression in peace, and by malice and wanton barbarity in war."
John Jay, Letter to De Neufville and Son, Madrid, July 29, 1780. [The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, Volume 4].
**********

"The danger (where there is any) from armed citizens, is only to the "government", not to "society"; and as long as they have nothing to revenge in the government (which they cannot have while it is in their own hands) there are many advantages in their being accustomed to the use of arms, and no possible disadvantage."
Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93.
**********

“Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown executive, will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim, to excite a war whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved, the people.”
James Madison, [The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Friday, June 29. [Elliot's Debates, Volume 5].
**********

"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offence to keep arms, and by substituting a regular army in the stead of a resort to the militia. The friends of a free government cannot be too watchful, to overcome the dangerous tendency of the public mind to sacrifice, for the sake of mere private convenience, this powerful check upon the designs of ambitious men."
Joseph Story, 'Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States', 1840
**********

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."
John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765. The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, Thompson, ed. (28).

"Our Consolation must be this, my dear, that Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrender their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it."
John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 7. 1775. [Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 1 AUGUST 1774 - AUGUST 1775. Library of Congress].
**********

"An Invasion of the Civil and Religious Liberties of a People, which are in their Nature sacred, and ought to be so esteemed by all Governments, is among the worst of Crimes, and is greatly aggravated when done by one, who is bound by Duty and Oath to preserve those Blessings, and to protect the People in the Enjoyment of them."
Robert Hunter Morris, Lieutenant Governor of Pensilvania, Jan. 3, 1755. [Copies of the Lieutenant Governor of Pensilvania his speeches to the Assembly, their addresses, in answer thereto, and several messages and answers, between them. Philadelphia, 1755].
**********

"When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils, but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."
Charles Montesquieu
**********

"I have a right to defend myself against persons who come against me, let them come from whence they will."
Rev. John Joachim Zubly, Georgia Delegate, Oct. 7, 1775, [Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789]. (First pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Savannah, GA., planter, and statesman during the American Revolution).
**********

"...Resolved, That the said committee be empowered to purchase what powder and arms arrive belonging to private persons, on the best terms they can, for the use of the United Colonies; and that they furnish with the fire arms they purchased such of the three remaining companies of the first Pensylvania batallion, ordered to Canada,who are now in the barracks and deficient in arms with good arms as may want them, in order that they may immediately proceed on their march."
Journals of the Continental Congress, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1776.
**********

The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, Volume 2

Deane to Hancock.

Philadelphia, September 14, 1778.

"Dear Sir: I have not had the pleasure of a line from you since you left us, which I impute to your having been so much engaged in public business. I hope the articles sent you arrived safe and were found to satisfaction, and that we shall soon have the pleasure of seeing you again in Philadelphia by one means or another. The affairs which respect me have dragged on so heavily that nothing decisive has been done, though I have been constantly applying, and my patience is really worn out, and I can not and will not longer endure a treatment which carries with it marks of the deepest ingratitude; but if the Congress have not time to hear a man who they have sent for four thousand miles, solely under the pretense of receiving intelligence from him, it is time that the good people of this continent should know the manner in which their representatives conduct the public business, and how they treat their fellow-citizens, who have rendered their country the most important services.

"I freely appeal to every man of honor and feelings, and will be content to be judged from what passes in his own breast, on supposing himself but for one moment exactly in my situation. A majority of Congress are disposed to do me justice, and complain of my being delayed in the manner I am from day to day and from week to week, but you know that in Congress a few men can put off the decision of any question by one means or other as long as they please, and you are not a stranger to what a certain triumvirate, who have been from the first members of Congress, are equal. The baseness and ingratitude of one of them you have sufficiently experienced in private life to know him capable of anything in public, and my old colleague, Roger the Jesuit, with their southern associates, have been indefatigable ever since my arrival. Roger, indeed, is at present on a tour to the army, and thence to New Haven, to stir up the pure minds of the faithful there against the next election of delegates. He is expected back in a few days, when perhaps they will be ready to take the field, after having suggested in whispers everything that could tend to hurt the man they causelessly attack. I am no way discouraged, but I am grieved to find our councils and our public deliberations conducted in the manner they are at present. The very name of Congress was a great while sacred almost as that of the Divinity in these States. You as well as I know how much weakness, to say nothing more, lay concealed from the first behind the sacred vail from the view of the public. I tremble for the consequences when Americans, who have served their country with the highest reputation at home and abroad, shall be forced by the injuries and abuse which they receive, in vindication of themselves, to draw this vail and hold up to the open view of their countrymen certain individuals who have by one circumstance or another greatly influenced the deliberations of Congress. Self-defense is the first law of nature. I hope and am sure I shall not be driven to this extremity whilst so many appear resolved to see justice done me. I will not add but that I most impatiently expect you here, and hope that you will bring Mrs. Hancock with you, to whom I pray you present my most respectful compliments.

I am, ever, with the most sincere attachment, dear sir, your most obedient and very humble servant,
Silas Deane

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"But that what I shall say may have the greater force, I beg it may be observed, that the law of nature and nations is nothing else but the law of general reason, or those obligations of duty from reason and conscience, on one individual to another, antecedent to any particular law derived from the social compact, or even actual consent. On this account, it is called the law of nature; and because there are very rarely to be found any parties in such a free state with regard to each other, except independent nations, therefore it is also called the law of nations. One nation to another is just as man to man in a state of nature.....

...if I may speak so, with the other indiscretions or even frauds, if you please to call them so, of withholding the cartouch boxes, or hiding or stealing the bayonets. The question is not, whether this or the other thing done by the army is a breach of the convention. I have for my part given up all these particulars, and declared my willingness to ratify the convention, after I have heard them and believe them to be true. But we have here the declared opinion of one of the parties, that the public faith is broken by the other. Now, the simplest man in the world knows, that a mutual onerous contract is always conditional; and that if the condition fails on one side, whether from necessity or fraud, the other is free."
John Witherspoon, Speech in Congress, January 8, 1778. reprinted from John Witherspoon, The Works of John Witherspoon . . ., 9 vols. (Edinburgh: J. Ogle, 1815), 9:108-16.
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"7 or 8 of the Traitors are under close confinement. Some of them will no doubt be hanged. This is disagreeable business, but if we dont hang them they'll hang us, and self preservation, you know, is the first law of nature."
William Whipple to John Langdon, Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 6, April 19, 1777
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"This government will commence in a moderate aristocracy: it is at present impossible to foresee whether it will, in its operation, produce a monarchy or a corrupt oppressive aristocracy; it will most probably vibrate some years between the two, and then terminate in the one or the other."
George Mason, [OBJECTIONS OF THE HON. GEORGE MASON, ONE OF THE DELEGATES FROM VIRGINIA IN THE LATE CONTINENTAL CONVENTION, TO THE PROPOSED FEDERAL CONSTITUTION; ASSIGNED AS HIS REASONS FOR NOT SIGNING THE SAME. Elliot's Debates, Volume 1].
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"It is the duty of the courts to be watchful for the Constitutional rights of the citizen and against any stealthy encroachments thereon."
Boyd vs. United States, 116 US 616 (1886)
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"The provision in the Constitution granting the right to all persons to bear arms is a limitation upon the power of the Legislature to enact any law to the contrary. The exercise of a right guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be made subject to the will of the sheriff."
People vs. Zerillo, 219 Mich. 635, 189 N.W. 927, at 928 (1922)
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"It is well settled that the Constitutional Rights protected from invasion by the police power, include Rights safeguarded both by express and implied prohibitions in the Constitutions."
Tiche vs. Osborne, 131 A. 60
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"Disobedience or evasion of a Constitutional Mandate cannot be tolerated, even though such disobedience may, at least temporarily, promote in some respects the best interests of the public."
Slote vs. Examination, 112 ALR 660
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"As a rule, fundamental limitations of regulations under the police power are found in the spirit of the Constitutions, not in the letter, although they are just as efficient as if expressed in the clearest language."
Mehlos vs. Milwaukee, 146 NW 882
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"The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime."
Miller v. U.S. 230 F 2nd 486 (1956)
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"Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them."
Miranda vs. Arizona, 384 US 436 (1966)
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"There should be no arbitrary deprivation of Life or Liberty..."
Barbour vs. Connolly, 113 US 27 (1885)
Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, 118 US 356 (1886)
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"There can be no sanction or penalty imposed upon one because of this exercise of constitutional Rights."
Sherar vs. Cullen, 481 F. 945 (1973)
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"With regard particularly to the U.S. Constitution, it is elementary that a Right secured or protected by that document cannot be overthrown or impaired by any state police authority."
Connolly vs. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 US 540 (1902)
Lafarier vs. Grand Trunk R.R. Co., 24 A. 848
O'Neil vs. Providence Amusement Co., 108 A. 887
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"Constitutional Rights cannot be denied simply because of hostility to their assertions and exercise; vindication of conceded Constitutional Rights cannot be made dependent upon any theory that it is less expensive to deny them than to afford them."
Watson vs. Memphis, 375 US 526 (1963)
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"The police power of the state must be exercised in subordination to the provisions of the U.S. Constitution."
Bacahanan vs. Wanley, 245 US 60 (1917)
Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co. vs. State Highway Commission, 294 US 613 (1935)
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"We find it intolerable that one Constitutional Right should have to be surrendered in order to assert another."
Simons vs. United States, 390 US 389 (1968)
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"The state cannot diminish Rights of the people."
Hurtado vs. California, 110 US 516 (1884)
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"No public policy of a state can be allowed to override the positive guarantees of the U.S. Constitution."
16 Am.Jur. (2nd), Const. Law, Sect. 70
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"The courts are not bound by mere form, nor are they to be misled by mere pretenses. They are at liberty -- indeed they are under a solemn duty -- to look at the substance of things, whenever they enter upon the inquiry whether the legislature has transcended the limits of its authority. If, therefore, a statute purported to have been enacted to protect ... the public safety, has no real or substantial relation to those objects or is a palpable invasion of Rights secured by the fundamental law, it is the duty of the courts to so adjudge, and thereby give effect to the Constitution."
Mulger vs. Kansas, 123 US 623, 661
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"Whereas notwithstanding the humble and dutiful petition of the last Congress to the King, and other wise and pacific measures taken for obtaining a happy reconciliation between Great Britain and the Colonies, the ministry lost to every sentiment of justice, liberty and humanity continue to send troops and ships of war into America, which destroy our trade, plunder and burn our towns and murder the good people of these colonies. Resolved, That this Colony most ardently wishes to see the former friendship, harmony and intercourse between Britain and these Colonies restored, and a happy and lasting connection established between both countries upon terms of just and equal liberty and will concur with the other colonies in all proper measures for obtaining those desirable blessings; and as every principle divine and human requires us to obey that great and fundamental law of nature, self preservation, until peace shall be restored upon constitutional principles; this colony will most heartily exert the whole power of government in conjunction with the other colonies for carrying on this just and necessary war, and bringing the same to a happy issue, and amongst other measures for obtaining this most desirable purpose, this Assembly is persunded, that the building and equipping an American fleet, as soon as possible, would greatly and essentially conduce to the preservation of the lives, liberty and property of the good people of these Colonies and therefore instruct their delegates to use their whole influence at the ensuing congress for building at the Continental expence a fleet of sufficient force for the protection of these colonies, and for employing them in such manner and places as will most effectually annoy our enemies, and contribute to the common defence of these colonies, and they are also instructed to use all their influence for carrying on the war in the most vigorous manner, until peace, liberty and safety are restored and secured to these Colonies upon an equitable and permanent basis."
One of the Delegates for Rhode Island laid before the Congress a part of the Instructions given them by the House of Magistrates, Aug.26,1775. As entered into the Journals of the Continental Congress, Oct. 3, 1775.
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From Daniel F. Coffey to John G. Nicolay, February 8, 1863

Griggsville Ill February 8th 1863

Friend Nichally Sir

it has now Become a Settled fact that we are to have a Blooddy Revolution in old pike & through the central & Southern portions of the State, unless prompt measures are adopted to prevent the Same, our own County as you are aware have turned out allmost to a man Such as would be accepted by the Government to fight its Battles & Sustain its Laws, I mean the union portion, the disloyal are at Home and out number us two to one and have been largely ReEnforced by Sevearl Hundred from Missouri Bushwhackers & Bridge Burners that ware Driven from that State & took Refuge here they together with the coperhead Democrats have many Lodges of the K. G. C.s1 with a membership of over 2000, well armed and have Resolved to resist the Government, disarm Union men & Claim the right to appropriate the property of Union men, and are now discussing in their secrit meeting the pallicy of Rising in mass at an Early day, Say (Feb 22d) all of the above facts can be fully proven to you or in a court of Justice; We are organizing and arming our old men & Boys & Such as are not in the army and are determined to resist them to the death this of course is without authority of Law other than the Law of Nature, as thare is no law of the State to meet the amergency & we have nothing to Hope from our Ledgislature; now Sir what Shall we doe, can we have our County declared to be under Martial law with a Military Government, or can we be Supported with armes &c in Short what must we doe, what is done must be done Quickly, but rest assured that we will, come, what may, we will do our duty & hope by the Help of God to triumph Even it costs the last life. please lay this matter before before the president. the pressing necessity of the case must be my excuse for claiming a moment of your allreddy overtaxed time may God Bless you, the president, and our Country, Excuse the bad writing as it is done in Hury & confusion but without undue Excite[mnt?]
yours D F Coffey capt Griggsville
Guards & Former Capt Co B 68 Ill
P S - you can wright to me or to W. A. Grimshaw of pittsfield

[Note 1 This is an abbreviation for the Knights of the Golden Circle--a clandestine, pro-Confederate organization in the North.]
Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Transcribed and Annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College. Galesburg, Illinois.
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"It is a rule of law that, in order to ascertain the import of a contract, the
evident intention of the parties, at the time of forming it, is principally to
be regarded. Previous to the formation of this Constitution, there existed
certain principles of the law of nature and nations, consecrated by time and
experience, in conformity to which the Constitution was formed."
Mr. Elliot, Debate in U.S. House of Representatives, Oct. 25, 1803
(The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal
Constitution), [Elliot's Debates, Volume 4]
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“...For every purpose essential to the defence of these states in the progress of the present war, and necessary to the attainment of the objects of it, these states now are as fully, legally, and absolutely confederated as it is possible for them to be. Read the credentials of the different delegates who composed the Congress in 1774, 1775, and part of 1776. You will find that they establish an union for the express purpose of opposing the oppressions of Britain, and obtaining redress of grievances. On the 4th of July, 1776, your representatives in Congress, perceiving that nothing less than unconditional submission would satisfy our enemies, did, in the name of the people of the thirteen United Colonies, declare them to be free and independent states, and "for the SUPPORT of that declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, did mutually pledge to each other their LIVES, their FORTUNES, and their SACRED HONOR." Was ever confederation more formal, more solemn, or explicit? It has been expressly assented to and ratified by every state in the union. Accordingly, for the direct SUPPORT of this declaration, that is, for the support of the independence of these states, armies have been raised, and bills of credit emitted and loans made to pay and supply them. The redemption, therefore, of these bills, the payment of these debts, and the settlement of the accounts of the several states for expenditures or services for the common benefit, and in this common cause, are among the objects of this confederation; and consequently, while all or any of its objects remain unattained, it cannot, so far as it may respect such objects, be dissolved, consistent with the laws of God or man....

“...Humanity as well as justice makes this demand upon you, the complaints of ruined widows, and the cries of fatherless children, whose whole support has been placed in your hands and melted away, have doubtless reached you: take care that they ascend no higher. Rouse, therefore, strive who shall do most for his country; re-kindle that flame of patriotism which at the mention of disgrace and slavery blazed throughout America, and animated all her citizens. Determine to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and gloriously. Let it never be said that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent, or that her infant glories and growing fame were obscured and tarnished by broken contracts and violated faith, in the very hour when all the nations of the earth were admiring and almost adoring the splendor of her rising.”

By the unanimous order of Congress,

John Jay, President.
Philadelphia, September 13th, 1779
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"The history of nations demonstrates that involuntary servitude not only plunges the slave into the depths of misery, but renders a great proportion of community dependant and wretched, and the remainder tyrannic and indolent.

"Opulence, acquired by the slavery of others, degenerates its possessors, and destroys the physical powers of government. Principles so degrading are inconsistent with the primitive dignity of man, and his natural rights.

"Slavery is incompatible with the vital principles of all free governments, and tends to their ruin. It paralizes industry, the greatest source of national wealth, stifles the love of freedom, and endangers the safety of the nation.

"It is prohibited by the laws of nature, which are equally binding on governments and individuals.  The right to introduce and establish slavery in a free government does not exist.
Journal of the U.S. Senate, Dec. 9, 1820
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"I hope and beleive that future Congresses will be as Wise and good as the present (I speak not thus in derogation of the present Congress) but We shall do our Duty, if We become the happy means of defending this Country from external Violence, secure (while in Place) by our Recommendations and advice, and neither ourselves nor advise others to introduce Principles which by Reason of their Rigidity or Laxity, will produce unhappiness. Indeed if We Maintain and secure the Liberty, Peace and Safety of the Country while in Place and do not introduce false Maxims, We shall do well. One great unhappiness which has almost always attended Civil Contentions is that those engaged in them have hastily and while the human Passions were up either adopted tyrannical Maxims without consideration, or in their Passion drove every Thing Amiable out of the World and but pretty rarely have gained half the good they fought for. While Passion is awake, Wisdom sleeps.... May they listen only to the Voice of Reason, never take a hasty step. Many Men and Communities have been ruined by it....

I am sir, with esteem, your humble and obedient Servant,
Oliver Wolcott to Samuel Lyman, April 17, 1776, Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume: 3
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"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
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"If all men were wise & good there would be no necessity for government or law. But the folly & the vice of human nature renders government & laws necessary for the Many, and restraints indispensable to prevent oppression from those who are entrusted with the administration of one & the dispensation of the other."
Richard Henry Lee to William Shippen, Jr., Oct. 2, 1787. Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 24
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"All Accounts from England seem to agree that we shall have a dreadfull Storm bursting on our heads thro' all America in the Spring. We must not shrink from it, we ought not to shew any simptoms of fear, the nearer it approaches and the greater the sound the more fortitude and calm, steady firmness we ought to possess. If we mean to defend our liberties, our dearest rights and privileges against the power of Britain to the last extremity we ought to bring ourselves to such a temper of mind as to stand unmoved at the bursting of an Earthquake. Altho the storm thickens I feel my self quite composed. I have furnished my self with a good Musket & Bayonet and when I can no longer be usefull in Council I hope I shall be willing to take the field. I think I had rather fall there than be carried off by a lingering illness. In this I am pretty much of the same opinion with the French General, who, confined a long time by sickness to his bed, on hearing the Duke of Berwick was killed by a cannon Ball exclaimed, Great God, how unfortunate I am, Berwick was always a lucky fellow."
Joseph Hewes to Samuel Johnston, Feb. 11, 1776. Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume: 3
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"From a firm persuasion that a Militia was the proper military force, & Arms and Ammunition the only Means, to defend & secure our Liberties; From a Conviction that to be prepared for a Civil War, is the finest & most effectual Means to prevent one, and for many other Reasons, our provincial Convention passed the Resolutions, which I enclosed You in my last Letter. We must either resist or infamously submit. If We are resolved to resist, & to defend our Liberties at the Risque of our Lives, a military force & Arms and Ammunition are the only Means. To resolve to resist, without making the necessary Preparations for Resistance, appears to Me to be weak, & a Deception to ourselves & our Friends."
Samuel Chase to James Duane, Feb. 5, 1775. Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 1
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"But as states are a collection of individual men, which ought we to respect most, the rights of the people composing them, or of the artificial beings resulting from the composition? Nothing could be more preposterous or absurd than to sacrifice the former to the latter. It has been said that, if the smaller states renounce their equality, they renounce, at the same time, their liberty. The truth is, it is a contest for power, not for liberty."
Alexander Hamilton, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution [Elliot's Debates, Volume 5]. Friday, June 29. 1787-88?, (no year given).
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"The great and rich should by no means have it in their power to set a price on the security of the weak and indigent; for then riches, which, under the protection of the laws, are the reward of industry, would become the aliment of tyranny. Liberty is at an end whenever the laws permit that, in certain cases, a man may cease to be a person, and become a thing. Then will the powerful employ their address to select from the various combinations of civil society all that is in their own favour. This is that magic art which transforms subjects into beasts of burden, and which, in the hands of the strong, is the chain that binds the weak and incautious. Thus it is that in some governments, where there is all the appearance of Liberty, tyranny lies concealed, and insinuates itself into some neglected corner of the constitution, where it gathers strength insensibly. Mankind generally oppose, with resolution, the assaults of barefaced and open tyranny, but disregard the little insect that gnaws through the dike, and opens a sure though secret passage to inundation."
Cesare Beccaria, 'Of Crimes and Punishments - Of Acts of violence'
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“If the guarantees of the Constitution can be broken provisionally to serve a temporary purpose, and in a part only of the country, we can destroy them everywhere and for all time. Arbitrary measures often change, but they generally change for the worse. It is the curse of despotism that it has no halting place. The intermitted exercise of its power brings no sense of security to its subjects, for they can never know what more they will be called to endure when its red right hand is armed to plague them again. Nor is it possible to conjecture how or where power, unrestrained by law, may seek its next victims. The States that are still free may be enslaved at any moment; for if the Constitution does not protect all, it protects none. . . . .This, to the minds of some persons, is so important that a violation of the Constitution is justified as a means of bringing it about. The morality is always false which excuses a wrong because it proposes to accomplish a desirable end. We are not permitted to do evil that good may come. But in this case the end itself is evil. as well as the means.”
Andrew Johnson, Message to the U.S. Senate, Washington, December 3, 1867
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Gentlemen,

Philadelphia

12th Feby 1776

The arrival of Troops at New York, the importance of that place to the Welfare of America, & the Necessity of throwing up a Number of Works to prevent our Enemies from Landing and Taking post there, render it necessary that a Number of Troops should immediately Join General Lee. I am therefore Desir'd to apply to you, and Request you, would with all possible Expedition send Detachments of your Minute Men equal to a Battalion under proper officers, & well Arm'd & Accoutred to New York, there to be under the Command of Genl. Lee. Your approved Zeal in the Cause of your Country gives me the strongest Assurances that you will with Alacrity embrace this Oppory. of Giving Aid to your Neighbours, and that your People will chearfully Engage in a Service by which they will not only render a very essential Service to their Country, but also have an Oppory. of Acquiring Military Skill & knowledge in the Construction of Field Works & the Method of Fortifying & retrenching Camps, by which they will be the better able when occasion Calls to Defend their Rights & Liberties. (1) I am Gentlemen,

Your Obedt. hume sevt,

J H Prest.

LB (DNA: PCC, item 12A). 1 On February 15 the New Jersey Provincial Congress voted "that Detachments of Minute Men, properly accoutrd, equal to a Battalion in the Continental Service, be immediately made, & marched to New-York." Am. Archives, 4th ser. 4:1593.
the New Jersey Provincial Convention, [Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume: 3 January 1, 1776 - May 15, 1776].
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"...The Colonel and Major Barber came here last evening, and the regiment is now within a few miles of this place, marching with cheerfulness, but great part of the men barefooted and barelegged. My heart melts with compassion for my brave countrymen who are thus venturing their lives in the publick service, and yet are so distressed. There is not a single shoe or stocking to be had in this part of the world, or I would ride a hundred miles through the woods and purchase them with my own money; for you'll consider that the weather here must be very different from that in New-Jersey: it is very cold now I assure you. For God's sake, my dear sir, upon the receipt of this, collect all the shoes and stockings you can, and send them off for Albany in light wagons; a couple of two-horse wagons will bring a great many, which may be distributed among our several regiments who will be all together at Tyconderoga in a few days. If any breeches and waistcoats be ready, send them along; but do not wait for them if the shoes and stockings are ready and the others not.

We have despatches from General Gates this morning, informing that he hourly expects to be attacked by the enemy; but our works are very strong, and a boom thrown across the water from Tyconderoga to Mount Independence, to prevent the enemy's shipping from getting below us (2) Therefore, I trust, with the blessing of Almighty God, that we shall disappoint their wicked and sanguinary purposes. But shall the brave troops from New-Jersey stand in the lines half-leg deep in snow, without shoes or stockings? God forbid! I shall empty my portmanteau of the stockings I have for my own use on this journey, excepting a pair to take me home; but this is a drop of water in the ocean.

In the utmost haste, I am, with much esteem, dear sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Richard Stockton to Abraham Clark, Oct. 28, 1776, Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 5
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"A PETITION of the Committee of the county of Frederick was presented to the Convention, and read; setting forth, that, by an Ordinance passed the 17th of July last, the people called Quakers and Menonists are exempted from serving in the militia; that they have a tender regard for the consciencious [sic] scruples of every religious society, but at the same time beg leave to represent the injustice of subjecting one part of the community to the whole burthen of government, while others equally shares the benefits of it; that they humbly suggest, that, if, in lieu of bearing arms at general and private musters, the said Quakers and Menonists were subjected to the payment of a certain sum, to be annually assessed by the county courts at laying the levy, and, in case the militia should be called into actual service, they should be draughted in the same proportion as the militia of the county, and, on their refusal to serve, or provide, able bodied men to serve in their places respectively, that they were liable to the same fines as other militia men in the like cases are subject to, it would be more equal; and that they submit it whether it would not be reasonable to allow any person who should choose to contribute to the support of the public, in lieu of attending musters, the same indulgence as to those who refuse from consciencious [sic] principles." [Image not available because the petition does not survive. Entry taken from the Virginia Journal of Convention 1775-1776]
Early Virginia Religious Petitions, Frederick, June 19, 1776. Library of Congress
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"The Rights are built on a fourfold foundation--on Nature, on the british Constitution, on Charters, and on immemorial Usage....(Lee. Cant see why We should not lay our Rights upon the broadest Bottom, the Ground of Nature)."
Coll. Lee, 9/08/1774, [John Adams' Notes of Debates, Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 1]

"It is necessary to recur to the Law of Nature, and the british Constitution to ascertain our Rights."
John Jay, 9/08/1774, [John Adams' Notes of Debates, Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 1]

(1 Adams recalled in his autobiography that the committee debates revolved around two points. "1. Whether We should recur to the Law of Nature, as well as to the British Constitution and our American Charters and Grants. Mr. Galloway and Mr. Duane were for excluding the Law of Nature. I was very strenuous for retaining and insisting on it, as a Resource to which We might be driven, by Parliament much sooner than We were aware...). [Adams, Diary (Butterfield), 2:128-31.]
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"He hoped that nothing like a monarchy would ever be attempted in this country. A hatred to its oppressions had carried the people through the late revolution. Will it not be enough to enable the executive to suspend offensive laws, till they shall be coolly revised, and the objections to them overruled by a greater majority than was required in the first instance? He never could agree to give up all the rights of the people to a single magistrate."
Col. George Mason, Virginia Delgate to the Federal Constitutional Convention, June 4, 1787/88(?). [Elliot's Debates, Volume 5]. Library of Congress.
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"The president laid before Congress a draught of a circular letter from Congress of the United States of America, to their constituents, which was read twice and unanimously agreed to:

"Friends and Fellow-Citizens!--In governments raised on tile generous principles of equal liberty, where the rulers of the state are the servants of the people, and not the masters of those from whom they derive authority; it is their duty to inform their fellow-citizens of the state of their affairs, and by evincing the propriety of public measures, lead them to unite the influence of inclination to the force of legal obligation in rendering them successful. This duty ceases not, even in times of the most perfect peace, order and tranquillity, when the safety of the commonwealth is neither endangered by force or seduction from abroad, or by faction, treachery or misguided ambition from within....

"The ungrateful despotism and inordinate lust of domination, which marked the unnatural designs of the British king and his venal parliament, to enslave tile people of America, reduced you to the necessity of either asserting your rights by arms, or ingloriously passing under the yoke. You nobly preferred war...."

...By the unanimous order of Congress,
John Jay, President. Philadelphia, September 13th, 1779 [ Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774- 1789]
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"...What powers his Lordship may have is not known but from all circumstances that have yet appeared they extend no farther than to receive submissions and grant Pardons. As the people of the united Colonies are only defending their Just rights and Liberties and have committed no Offence they have nothing to ask pardon for, consequently cannot negotiate with his Lordship...."
Joseph Hewes, letter to Samuel Johnston, July 24, 1776, [Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 4].
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"But our quondam Friend Jonathan used to quote from Mat. Prior "when it is to combat Evil, Tis lawfull to employ the Devil." There is no greater Evil on Earth or under it than the War that is made upon Us. And We have a Right, and it is our Duty to defend our selves, by such Means as We have."
John Adams, Letter to David Sewall, June 12, 1776. [Letters of Delegates to Congress: Vol. 4].
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"A republic worth living in is worth fighting for, and sacrificing for, and dying for. In the fires of this conflict we shall wipe out the disloyalty of those who wear American garb without the faith, and establish a new concord of citizenship and a new devotion, so that we should have made a safe America the home and hope of a people who are truly American in heart and soul."
Senator Warren G. Harding, [American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election, 1918-1920. Library of Congress - American Memory].

"Those you mention who seem frightened at finding themselves where they are, will by degrees recover Spirits when they find by Experience how inefficient merely mercenary the regular Troops are, when oppos'd to Freeholders & Freemen, fighting for their Liberties & Properties. A Country of such People was never yet conquer'd, (unless through their own Divisions) by any absolute Monarch and his Mercenaries. But such States have often conquer'd Monarchies, and led mighty Princes captive in Triumph."
Benjamin Franklin to Silas Deane, Aug. 27. 1775, Letters of Delegates to Congress: Vol. 1
**********

"We have drawn our Swords in defence of a good Constitution & for the priviledge of being governed by laws of our own making. While you continue to the people these objects they will support you to the last penny in their purse & the last drop of their blood. Infringe their rights, invade the Confederation, & you can no longer assure yourself of the peoples support."
David Howell to Nicholas Brown, Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 19 Oct. 30 1782.
**********

"Always a frontiersman, he was of that class, who with rifle on the shoulder and axe in hand, was capable of defending himself and family, at the same time making a home in a new country and establish civilization - a fit representative of an Oregon pioneer. He belonged to a class that is rapidly disappearing. They have fulfilled their mission and are being gathered from the earth."
Joseph Henry Brown, from 'A Pioneer of 1847', written in May 9 1939, about his grandfather Thomas Cox, first merchant of Salem, OR. [American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940]. (American Memory - Library of Congress).
**********

"Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That whenever in any State or district in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion, and wherein, in consequence of any State or local law, ordinance, police or other regulation, custom, or prejudice, any of the civil rights or immunities belonging to white persons, including the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, and to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and estate, including the constitutional right of bearing arms, are refused or denied to negroes, mulattoes, freedmen, refugees, or any other persons, on account of race, color, or any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, or wherein they or any of them are subjected to any other or different punishment, pains, or penalties, for the commission of any act or offence, than are prescribed for white persons committing like acts or offences, it shall be the duty of the President of the United States, through the Commissioner, to extend military protection and jurisdiction over all cases affecting such persons so discriminated against. “
Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, “AN ACT to amend an act entitled 'An act to establish a Bureau for the relief of Freedmen and Refugees,' and for ether purposes.”
**********

"Mr. Simms submitted the following resolution for consideration:

"Resolved, That the right of protection to life, liberty, and property is the right inviolable of every citizen of the Confederate States, and that this right is made sacred by the highest guarantees of the Constitution, and that neither Congress nor the Executive, nor any officer or agent of any of the Departments of this Government have power, in any manner or under any pretense whatsoever, to impair, interfere with, or destroy this inherent and inviolable right.

"Second. That the right to hold and possess property is a right guaranteed to every citizen of the Confederate States by the Constitution thereof, and the right to defend the same and his domicile from unlawful invasion, seizure, or conversion shall not be impaired or questioned, and that all seizures or impressments of any such property, by any officer or agent of this Government, are in violation of the plainest provisions of the Constitution, are destructive of the most sacred rights of the citizen, and an unwarranted breach of the plighted faith of the Government to the citizens thereof, and are therefore void.

"The Senate proceeded to consider the said resolution; and

"On motion by Mr. Simms,

"Ordered, That it be laid upon the table and printed."
Jan. 19, 1863. [Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865 Volume 3]. Library of Congress.
**********

“...Third That whilst a majority of the people are loyal they have been robbed of all their arms and their young men forced into the Army as conscripts untill they are unable to defend themselves or help each other and this state of things can only be changed by driveing the Rebel Armies South of Arks. River and guaranteeing protection to these suffering people when the assertion of their loyalty would soon be verified....”

[Note 1 Lincoln had authorized McPherson to go to Arkansas and attempt to organize elections before the Final Emancipation Proclamation would take effect on January 1. See Collected Works, V, 500.]
William M. McPherson, Letter to Abraham Lincoln, Thursday, December 25, 1862. [Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Transcribed and Annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College. Galesburg, Illinois.]
**********

"The whole of that Bill of Rights is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals....It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."
Albert Gallatin to Alexander Addison, Oct 7, 1789, MS. in N.Y. Hist. Soc.-A.G. Papers.
**********

"A bill of rights is only an acknowledgment of the preëxisting claim to rights in the people. They belong to us as much as if they had been inserted in the Constitution."
George Nicholas, June 16, 1788, The Debates in the Several State Conventions, (Virginia), on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution. [Elliot's Debates, Volume 3].
**********

"Men do often, perhaps generally, adhere with greater obstinacy to opinions that are ill, than those that are well founded, and avenge imaginary or trifling injuries with greater violence than those that are real and great."
John Witherspoon, Speech in Congress, Jan. 8, 1778. Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 8.
**********

"Our forefathers lifted the thumb of the tyrant with their trigger fingers."
PastorGuest@earthlink.net, Comment left on K.A.B.A. 9/08/2006
**********

“...Mr. Sumner presented a memorial of colored people of South Carolina, praying the enactment of laws for the protection of the lives and property of all persons in that State, without regard to color; that the right of suffrage may be granted to colored persons on equal terms with white persons; that colored persons shall not, in all cases, be tried by juries of white men; that colored men may not be excluded from the jury-box, nor denied the right of bearing arms; which was referred to the Joint Committee to inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederate States of America....”
Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, January 22, 1866

"Due to sloth, inattention or desire to seize tactical advantage, lawyers have long engaged in dilatory practices... the glacial pace of much litigation breeds frustration with the Federal Courts and ultimately, disrespect for the law."
Roadway Express v. Pipe, 447 U.S. 752 at 757 (1982)


~~~~~~~~~~~~

SONGS THAT HAVE TO DO WITH THE "AMERICAN DREAM"


1.    Trouble Every Day  (Zappa & The Mothers of Invention)
2.    Sleep Now In The Fire  (Rage Against The Machine)
3.    Testify  (Rage Against The Machine)
4.    Ghost Of Tom Joad   (Rage Against The Machine, Written by Bruce Springsteen)
5.    Renegades Of Funk   (Rage Against The Machine)
6.    Bulls On Parade  (Rage Against The Machine)
7.    Bullet In The Head  (Rage Against The Machine)
8.    Killing In The Name  (Rage Against The Machine)
9.    Know Your Enemy  (Rage Against The Machine)
10.    Fistful Of Steel  (Rage Against The Machine)
11.    Bombtrack  (Rage Against The Machine)
12.    Down Rodeo  (Rage Against The Machine)
13.    Can’t Happen Here   (Rainbow)
14.    The Message   (Grand Master Flash)
15.    Smugglers' Blues  (Glen Fry)
16.    Electric Avenue  (Eddie Grant)
17.    We Didn’t Start The Fire  (Billy Joel)
18.    Gimme Some Truth  (John Lennon)
19.    What's So Funny About Peace Love And Understanding  (Elvis Costello)
20.    Militry Madness  (Graham Nash)
21.    Student Demonstration Time  (Beach Boys)
22.    Subterranean Homesick Blues (Bob Dylan)
23.    Ohio  (Neil Young)
24.    20th Century Man (The Kinks)
25.    War  (Edwin Starr)
26.    Fortunate Son  (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
27.    I Found Out  (John Lennon)
28.    American Idiot (Green Day)
~~~~~~~~~~~~




“Trouble Every Day”
Frank Zappa
From the Freak Out! album, 1966

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtk2gozGtbg

Well I'm about to get sick
From watchin' my TV
Been checkin' out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it's gonna change, my friend
Is anybody's guess

So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day

Wednesday I watched the riot . . .
Seen the cops out on the street
Watched 'em throwin' rocks and stuff
And chokin' in the heat
Listened to reports
About the whisky passin' 'round
Seen the smoke and fire
And the market burnin' down
Watched while everybody
On his street would take a turn
To stomp and smash and bash and crash
And slash and bust and burn

And I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day

Well, you can cool it,
You can heat it . . .
'Cause, baby, I don't need it . . .
Take your TV tube and eat it
'N all that phony stuff on sports
'N all the unconfirmed reports
You know I watched that rotten box
Until my head begin to hurt
From checkin' out the way
The newsman say they get the dirt
Before the guys on channel so-and-so

And further they assert
That any show they'll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up
They will be the first to tell,
Because the boys they got downtown
Are workin' hard and doin' swell,
And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster
Their coverage can't be beat

And if another woman driver
Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They'll send some joker with a brownie
And you'll see it all complete

So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day

Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white

Well, I seen the fires burnin'
And the local people turnin'
On the merchants and the shops
Who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every other household item
Watched the mob just turn and bite 'em
And they say it served 'em right
Because a few of them are white,
And it's the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin' "You can't understand me!"
'N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
(No matter if it's black or white)
Because he's out for blood tonight

You know we got to sit around at home
And watch this thing begin
But I bet there won't be many live
To see it really end
'Cause the fire in the street
Ain't like the fire in the heart
And in the eyes of all these people
Don't you know that this could start
On any street in any town
In any state if any clown
Decides that now's the time to fight
For some ideal he thinks is right
And if a million more agree
There ain't no Great Society
As it applies to you and me
Our country isn't free
And the law refuses to see
If all that you can ever be
Is just a lousy janitor
Unless your uncle owns a store
You know that five in every four
Just won't amount to nothin' more
Gonna watch the rats go across the floor
And make up songs about being poor

Blow your harmonica, son!


~~~~~~~~~~~~





"Sleep Now In The Fire"
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w211KOQ5BMI

YEAAAH!

The world is my expense
The cost of my desire
Jesus blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
So raise your fists and march around
Dont dare take what you need
I'll jail and bury those committed
And smother the rest in greed
Crawl with me into tomorrow
Or i'll drag you to your grave
I'm deep inside your children
They'll betray you in my name

Hey!
Hey!
Sleep now in the fire

Hey!
Hey!
Sleep now in the fire

The lie is my expense
The scope with my desire
The party blessed me with its future
And i protect it with fire
I am the nina, the pinta, the santa maria
The noose and the rapist, the fields overseer
The agents of orange
The priests of hiroshima
The cost of my desire
Sleep now in the fire

Hey!
Hey!
Sleep now in the fire

Hey!
Hey!
Sleep now in the fire

For it's the end of history
It's caged and frozen still
There is no other pill to take
So swallow the one
That makes you ill
The nina, the pinta, the santa maria
The noose and the rapist, the fields' overseer
The agents of orange
The priests of hiroshima
The cost of my desire
Sleep now in the fire

YEAAAH!

Sleep now in the fire!
Sleep now in the fire!
Sleep now in the fire!
Sleep now in the fire!


~~~~~~~~~~~


Testify
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dvbM6Pias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm7ych5qH14 (LIVE)

UGH!

The movie ran through me
The glamour subdue me
The tabloid untie me
I'm empty please fill me
Mister anchor assure me
That Baghdad is burning
Your voice it is so soothing
That cunning mantra of killing
I need you my witness
To dress this up so bloodless
To numb me and purge me now
Of thoughts of blaming you
Yes the car is our wheelchair
My witness your coughing
Oily silence mocks the legless
Ones who travel now in coffins
On the corner
The jury's sleepless
We found your weakness
And it's right outside our door
Now testify

Now testify
It's right outside our door
Now testify
Yes testify
It's right outside our door

With precision you feed me
My witness I'm hungry
Your temple it calms me
So I can carry on
My slaving sweating the skin right off my bones
On a bed of fire I'm choking on the smoke that fills my home
The wrecking ball is rushing
Witness your blushing
The pipeline is gushing
While here we lie in tombs
While on the corner
The jury's sleepless
We found your weakness
And it's right outside our door
Now testify
Yeah testify
It's right outside our door
Now testify
Now testify
It's right outside our door

Mass graves for the pump and the price is set
Mass graves for the pump and the price is set
Mass graves for the pump and the price is set
Mass graves for the pump and the price is set

Who controls the past now controls the future
Who controls the present now controls the past
Who controls the past now controls the future
Who controls the present now?

Now testify
Testify
It's right outside our door
Now testify
Testify
It's right outside our door



~~~~~~~~~~~


"The Ghost Of Tom Joad"
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqnMrynpq9U


Man walks along the railroad track
He's Goin' some place, there's no turnin' back
The Highway Patrol chopper comin' up over the ridge
Man sleeps by a campfire under the bridge
The shelter line stretchin' around the corner
Welcome to the New World Order
Families sleepin' in their cars out in the Southwest
No job, no home, no peace, no rest, NO REST!

And The highway is alive tonight
Nobody's foolin' nobody is to where it goes
I'm sitting down here in the campfire light
Searchin' for the Ghost of Tom Joad

He pulls his prayer book out of a sleepin' bag
The preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
He's waitin' for the time when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
With a one way ticket to the promised land
With a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand
Lookin' for a pillow of solid rock
Bathin' in the cities' aqueducts

And The highway is alive tonight
Nobody's foolin' nobody is to where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
With the Ghost of old Tom Joad

Now Tom Said; "Ma, whenever ya see a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry new born baby cries
Whereever there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me ma'
I'll be there
Wherever somebodies stuglin' for a place to stand
For a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody is strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes ma,
You'll see me! [repeat 8 times]

And the highway is alive tonight
nobody's foolin' nobody is to where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
With the Ghost of Tom Joad.


~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Renegades Of Funk"
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIHY_y6TQo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMqL13DRLwE  (LIVE)

No matter how hard you try, you can't stop us now
No matter how hard you try, you can't stop us now

We're the renegades of this atomic age
This atomic age of renegades
Renegades of this atomic age
This atomic age of renegades

Since the Prehistoric ages and the days of ancient Greece
Right down through the Middle Ages
Planet earth kept going through changes
And then the Renaissance came and times continued to change
Nothing stayed the same but there were always renegades
Like Chief Sitting Bull, Tom Paine
Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X
They were renegades of their time and age
So many renegades

We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk

From a different solar system many many galaxies away
We are the force of another creation
A new musical revelation
And we're on this musical mission to help the others listen
And groove from land to land singin' electronic chants like
Zulu nation
Revelations
Destroy our nations
Destroy our nations

Now renegades are the people with their own philosophies
They change the course of history
Everyday people like you and me
We're the renegades we're the people
With our own philosophies
We change the course of history
Everyday people like you and me
C'mon
We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk

Poppin', sockin', rockin' puttin' a side of hip-hop
Because where we're goin' there ain't no stoppin'
Poppin', sockin', rockin', puttin' a side of hip-hop
Because where we're goin' there ain't no stoppin'
Poppin', sockin', rockin' puttin' a side of hip-hop
'Cause we're poppin', sockin', rockin' puttin' a side of hip-hop
Poppin', sockin', rockin' puttin' a side of hip-hop

We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk
We're the renegades of funk

We're teachers of the funk
And not of empty popping
We're blessed with the force and the sight of electronics
With the bass, and the treble the horns and our vocals
'Cause every time I pop into the beat we get fresh

There was a time when our music
Was something called the Bay Street beat
People would gather from all around
To get down to the big sound
You had to be a renegade in those days
To take a man to the dance floor

Say jam sucker (jam)
Say jam sucker (jam)
Say groove sucker (groove)
Say groove sucker (groove)
Say dance sucker (dance)
Say dance sucker (dance)
Now move sucker (move)
Now move sucker (move)
[x2]

We're the renegades of funk



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Bulls On Parade"
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L4YrGaR8E4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ubFgAwKlU  (LIVE)

Come wit it now!
Come wit it now!
The microphone explodes, shattering the molds
Either drop tha hits like de la O or get tha fuck off tha commode
Wit tha sure shot, sure ta make tha bodies drop
Drop an don't copy yo, don't call this a co-op
Terror rains drenchin', quenchin' tha thirst of tha power dons
That five sided fist-a-gon
Tha rotten sore on tha face of mother earth gets bigger
Tha triggers cold empty ya purse

Rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells
They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells
They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells
They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells

Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal
I walk tha corner to tha rubble that used to be a library
Line up to tha mind cemetery now
What we don't know keeps tha contracts alive an movin'
They don't gotta burn tha books they just remove 'em
While arms warehouses fill as quick as tha cells
Rally round tha family, pockets full of shells

Rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells
They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells
They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells
They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells

Bulls on parade

Come wit it now!
Come wit it now!
Bulls on parade!
Bulls on parade!
Bulls on parade!
Bulls on parade!
Bulls on parade!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Bullet In The Head"
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5NeyI4-fdI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI677jYfKz0 (LIVE)

This time the bullet cold rocked ya
A yellow ribbon instead of a swastika
Nothin' proper about ya propaganda
Fools follow rules when the set commands ya
Said it was blue
When ya blood was red
That's how ya got a bullet blasted through ya head

Blasted through ya head
Blasted through ya head

I give a shout out to the living dead
Who stood and watched as the feds cold centralized
So serene on the screen
You were mesmerised
Cellular phones soundin' a death tone
Corporations cold
Turn ya to stone before ya realise
They load the clip in omnicolour
Said they pack the 9, they fire it at prime time
Sleeping gas, every home was like Alcatraz
And mutha fuckas lost their minds

Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high
Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high

Run it!

Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high
Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high

Checka, checka, check it out
They load the clip in omnicolour
Said they pack the 9, they fire it at prime time
Sleeping gas, every home was like Alcatraz
And mutha fuckas lost their minds

No escape from the mass mind rape
Play it again jack and then rewind the tape
And then play it again and again and again
Until ya mind is locked in
Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya
Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya
They say jump and ya say how high
Ya brain-dead
Ya gotta fuckin' bullet in ya head

Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high
Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high

Uggh! Yeah! Yea!

Ya standin' in line
Believin' the lies
Ya bowin' down to the flag
Ya gotta bullet in ya head

Ya standin' in line
Believin' the lies
Ya bowin' down to the flag
Ya gotta bullet in ya head

A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
Ya gotta bullet in ya fuckin' head!

Yeah!

Yeah!


~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Killing In The Name"
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8de2W3rtZsA (LIVE)

Killing in the name of
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Huh!

Killing in the name of
Killing in the name of

And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
But now you do what they told ya
Well now you do what they told ya

Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites

Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Uggh!

Killing in the name of
Killing in the name of

And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya!

Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites
Come on!

Yeah! Come on!

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Motherfucker!
Uggh!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Know Your Enemy"
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4smim2MNvF8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HdqMAXQtBo (LIVE)

Huh!
Yeah, we're comin' back in with another "Bombtrack"
Think ya know it's all of that, HUH!
Hey yo, so check this out...
Yeah...
Know your enemy!
Come on!

Born with insight and a raised fist
A witness to the slit wrist
As we, move into '92
Still in a room without a view
Ya got to know, ya got to know
That when I say go, go, go!
Amp up and amplify
Defy, I'm a brother with a furious mind
Action must be taken
We don't need the key, we'll break in

Something must be done
About vengeance, a badge and a gun
Cause I'll rip the mic, rip the stage, rip the system
I was born to Rage Against 'em!
Fist in ya face in the place and I'll drop the style clearly...
Know your enemy!

Know your enemy!

Yeah!
Hey yo, and get with this... ugh!

Word, is, born!
Fight the war, FUCK the norm!
Now I got no patience
So sick of complacence
With the D, the E, the F, the I, the A, the N, the C, the E
Mind of a revolutionary, so clear the lane
The finger to the land of the chains
WHAT?! The "land of the free?"
Whoever told you that is your enemy!
Now something must be done
About vengeance, a badge and a gun
Cause I'll rip the mic, rip the stage, rip the system
I was born to Rage Against 'em!
Now action must be taken
We don't need the key, we'll BREAK IN!!

I've got no patience now...
So sick of complacence, now...
I've got no patience, now...
So sick of complacence now..
Sick of, sick of, sick of, sick of...you..
Time...has...come...to...PAY!!!
Know your enemy!

Come on!
Yes, I know my enemies!
They're the teachers who taught me to fight me!
Compromise! Conformity! Assimilation! Submission!
Ignorance! Hypocrisy! Brutality! The elite!
All of which are American dreams!
All of which are American dreams!
All of which are American dreams!
All of which are American dreams!

All of which are American dreams!
All of which are American dreams!
All of which are American dreams!
All of which are American dreams!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Fistful Of Steel"
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg8zR91tgSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZDvZmvhik (LIVE)

Huh!
Check it...uggh!
Silence
Something about silence makes me sick
'Cause silence can be violent
Sorta like a slit wrist

If the vibe was suicide
Then you would push da button
But if ya bowin' down
Then let me do the cuttin'

Some speak the sounds
But speak in silent voices
Like radio is silent
Though it fills the air with noises
Its transmissions bring submission
As ya mold to the unreal
And mad boy grips the microphone
Wit' a fistful of steel
Yeah...and mad mad boy grips the microphone
Wit' a fistful of steel

Wit' a fistful of steel
('Cause I know the power of the question)
Wit' a fistful of steel
Wit' a fistful of steel
(And I won't stop cause I know the power of the question)

It's time to flow like the fluid in ya veins
If ya will it, I will spill it
And ya out just as quick as ya came
Not a silent one
But a defiant one
Never a normal one
'Cause I'm the bastard son
With the visions of the move
Vocals not to soothe
But to ignite and put in flight
My sense of militance
Groovin', playin' this game called survival
The status, the elite, the enemy, the rival
The silent sheep slippin', riffin', trippin'
Give ya a glimpse of the reality I'm grippin'
Steppin' into the jam and I'm slammin' like Shaquille
Mad boy grips the microphone
Wit' a fistful of steel
Yeah...and mad boy grips the microphone
Wit' a fistful of steel

Wit' a fistful of steel
('Cause I know the power of the question)
Wit' a fistful of steel
Wit' a fistful of steel
(And I won't stop 'cause I know the power of the question)
Ahh shit

And I won't stop 'cause I know the power of the question

And if the vibe was suicide
Then you would push da button
But if ya bowin' down
Then let me do the cuttin`
Yeah!
Come on!

A .44 full of bullets
Face full of pale
Eyes full of empty
A stare full of nails
The roulette ball, rolls along on the wheel
A mind full of fire
And a fistful of steel

And if the vibe was suicide
Then you would push da button
But if ya bowin' down
Then let me do the cuttin'

Yeah! Wit' a fistful of steel!
Come on!
Uggh!
Wit' a fistful of steel!
Uggh!


~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Bombtrack"
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfbwbwXNenw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0YD6jWmvGs (LIVE)

Ughh!
Hey yo, it's just another bombtrack...ughh!
Hey yo, it's just another bombtrack...yeah!
It goes a-1, 2, 3...

Yeah, it's just another bombtrack
And suckas be thinkin' that they can fake this
But I'm gonna drop it at a higher level
'Cause I'm inclined to stoop down
Hand out some beat-downs
Cold runna train on punk ho's that
Think they run the game

But I learned to burn that bridge and delete
Those who compete...at a level that's obsolete
Instead I warm my hands upon the flames of the flag
To recall our downfall
And the businesses that burned us all
See through the news and the views that twist reality

Enough
I call the bluff
Fuck Manifest Destiny

Landlords and power whores
On my people they took turns
Dispute the suits I ignite
And then watch 'em burn

With the thoughts from a militant mind
Hardline, hardline after hardline

Landlords and power whores
On my people they took turns
Dispute the suits I ignite
And then watch 'em burn

Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn

Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn

It goes a-1, 2, 3
Another funky radical bombtrack
Started as a sketch in my notebook
And now dope hooks make punks take another look
My thoughts ya hear and ya begin to fear
That ya card will get pulled if ya interfere

With the thoughts from a militant militant mind
Hardline, hardline after hardline

Landlords and power whores
On my people they took turns
Dispute the suits I ignite
And then watch 'em burn

Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn

Ughh
Hey yo, it's just another bombtrack
Yeah
Ughh

Check it out

Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn
Burn!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Down Rodeo”
Rage Against The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAPEXO2dSSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlyXbCnoTyU  (LIVE)

Yeah I'm rollin' down rodeo with a shotgun
These people ain't seen a brown skin man
Since their grandparents bought one

So now I'm rollin' down rodeo with a shotgun
These people ain't seen a brown skin man
Since their grandparents bought one
So now I'm rollin' down rodeo with a shotgun

Bangin' this bolo tight on this solo flight can't fight alone
Funk the track my verbs fly like the family stone
Tha pen devils set that stage for the war at home
Locked with out a wage you standin' in the drop zone
The clockers born starin' at an empty plate
Momma's torn hands cover her sunken face

We hungry but them belly full
The structure is set you never change it with a ballot pull
In the ruins there's a network for the toxic rock
School yard to precinct, suburb to project block
Bosses broke south for new flesh and a factory floor
The remains left chained to the powder war

Can't waste a day when the night brings a hearse
So make a move and plead the fifth 'cause you can't plead the first
Can't waste a day when the night brings a hearse

So now I'm rollin' down rodeo with a shotgun
These people ain't seen a brown skin man
Since their grandparents bought one

Yes I'm rollin' down rodeo with a shotgun
These people ain't seen a brown skin man
Since their grandparents bought one
So now I'm rollin' down rodeo with a shotgun

Bare witness to the sickest shot while suckas get romantic
They ain't gonna send us campin' like they did my man Fred Hampton
Still we lampin' still clockin' dirt for our sweat
A ballots dead so a bullet's what I get

A thousand years they had the tools, we should be takin' 'em
Fuck the G-ride I want the machines that are makin' em
Our target straight with a room full of armed pawn to
Off the Kings out the west side at dawn

Can't waste a day when the night brings a hearse
Make a move and plead the fifth 'cause you can't plead the first
Can't waste a day when the night brings a hearse

So now I'm rollin' down rodeo wit a shotgun
These people ain't seen a brown skin man
Since their grandparents bought one

Yeah I'm rollin' down rodeo wit a shotgun
These people ain't seen a brown skin man
Since their grandparents bought one
Yeah I'm rollin' down rodeo wit a shotgun

The rungs torn from the ladder can't reach the tumor
One God, one market, one truth, one consumer

Just a quiet peaceful dance
Just a quiet peaceful dance
Just a quiet peaceful dance
Just a quiet peaceful dance
Just a quiet peaceful dance for the things we'll never have
Just a quiet peaceful dance for the things we don't have


~~~~~~~~~~~~




Can't Happen Here
Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow
(Blackmore / Glover)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W5iUFzK9ps


Contaminated fish and micro chips
huge supertankers on Arabian trips
oily propaganda from the leaders' lips
all about the future
there's people over here, people over there
everybody's looking for a little more air
crossing all the borders just to take their share
planning for the future

and we're so abused, and we're so confused
it's easy to believe that someone's gonna light the fuse
can't happen here, can't happen here
all that you fear they're telling you, can't happen here

Supersonic planes for a holiday boom
Rio de Janeiro in an afternoon
people out of work but there's people on the moon
looking for the future

concrete racetracks nationwide
juggernauts carving up the countryside
cars by the million on a one way ride
using up the future

and we're so abused, and we're so confused
it's easy to believe that someone's gonna light the fuse
can't happen here, can't happen here
all that you fear they're telling you, can't happen here

Satellites spying for the CIA
the KGB and the men in grey
wonder if I'm gonna see another day
somewhere in the future

We got everything we need for a peaceful time
take what you want but you can't take mine
everybody's living on the Siegfried line
worried 'bout the future
and we're so abused, and we're so confused
it's so easy to believe that someone's gonna light it
easy to believe someone's gonna light the fuse
can't happen here, can't happen here
all that you fear they're telling you, can't happen here can it?



~~~~~~~~~~~~







The Message

Grandmaster Flash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PobrSpMwKk4


It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care
I can't take the smell, I can't take the noise
Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkies in the alley with the baseball bat
I tried to get away, but I couldn't get far
Cause a man with a tow-truck repossessed my car

Chorus:
Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head, ah huh-huh-huh
[2nd and 5th: ah huh-huh-huh]
[4th: say what?]
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Standing on the front stoop, hangin' out the window
Watching all the cars go by, roaring as the breezes blow
Crazy lady livin' in a bag
Eating out of garbage pails, used to be a fag-hag
Said she danced the tango, skipped the light fandango
The Zircon Princess seemed to lost her senses
Down at the peepshow, watching all the creeps
So she can tell the stories to the girls back home
She went to the city and got social security
She had to get a pimp, she couldn't make it on her own

[2nd Chorus]

My brother's doing bad on my mother's tv
She says: "You watch it too much, it's just not healthy!"
"All My Children" in the daytime, "Dallas" at night
Can't even see the game or the Sugar Ray fight
The bill collectors they ring my phone
And scare my wife when I'm not home
Got a bum education, double-digit inflation
I can't take the train to the job, there's a strike at the station
Neon King Kong standin' on my back
Can't stop to turn around, broke my sacrophiliac
A mid-ranged migraine, cancered membrane
Sometimes I think I'm going insane, I swear I might hijack a plane

My son said: "Daddy I don't wonna go to school
Cause the teacher's a jerk! ", he must think I'm a fool
And all the kids smoke reefer, I think it'd be cheaper
If I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper
I'll dance to the beat, shuffle my feet
Wear a shirt and tie and run with the creeps
Cause it's all about money, ain't a damn thing funny
You got to have a con in this land of milk and honey
They pushed that girl in front of the train
Took her to the doctor, sewed her arm on again
Stabbed that man right in his heart
Gave him a transplant for a brand new start
I can't walk through the park, cause it's crazy after dark
Keep my hand on my gun, cause they got me on the run
I feel like a outlaw, broke my last glass jar
Hear them say: "You want some more livin' on a seesaw?"

[4th Chorus]

A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but he's frowning too
Because only God knows what you'll go through
You'll grow in the ghetto, living second rate
And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate
The places you're playin', where you stay
Looks like one great big alley way
You'll admire all the number book takers
Thugs, pimps, pushers and the big money makers
Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens
And you wanna grow up to be just like them, huh,
Smugglers, scrambles, burglars, gamblers
Pickpockets, peddlers even panhandlers
You say: "I'm cool, I'm no fool!"
But then you wind up dropping out of high school
Now you're unemployed, all non-void
Walking 'round like you're Pretty Boy Floyd
Turned stickup kid, look what you've done did
Got sent up for a eight year bid
Now your manhood is took and you're a may tag
Spend the next two years as a undercover fag
Being used and abused to serve like hell
Till one day you was found hung dead in a cell
It was plain to see that your life was lost
You was cold and your body swung back and forth
But now your eyes sing the sad, sad song
Of how you lived so fast and died so young

Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under

Yo Mell, you see that girl there?
Yo, that sounded like Cowboy man
Cool
Yo, what's up Money?
Yo, where's Cooly an Raheim?
They is downstairs coooling out
So what's up for tonight y'all?
We could go down to Phoenix
We could go check out "Junebug" man
Hey yo, you know that girl Betty?
Yeah man
Come on, come all man
Not like it
That's what I heard man
What's this happening, what's this?
What's goin' on?
Freeze
Don't nobody move or nothin'
Y'all know what this is (What's happend?)
Get 'em up, get 'em up (What?)
Oh man, we're (Right in there) Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
What is that, a gang?
No
Shut up
I don't wanna hear your mouth
Shut up
Officer, officer, what is the problem?
You the problem
Hey, you ain't gotta push me man
Get in the car, get in the car
Get in the god...
I said, "Get in the car"
Why is he?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~





"Smugglers' Blues"

Glenn Frey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSXKyHM133c


There's trouble on the street tonight, I can feel it in my bones
I had a premonition that he should not go alone
I knew the gun was loaded, but I didn't think he'd kill
Everything exploded, and the blood began to spill
So baby, here's your ticket, and the suitcase in your hand
Here's a little money, now do it just the way we planned
You be cool for twenty hours, and I'll pay you twenty grand
I'm sorry it went down like this, but someone had to lose
It's the nature of the business, it's the smuggler's blues
Smuggler's blues

The sailors and the pilots, the soldiers and the law
The payoffs and the ripoffs and the things nobody saw
Don't matter if it's heroin, cocaine or hash,
You've got to carry weapons 'cause you always carry cash
There's lots of shady characters and lots of dirty deals
Every name's an alias in case somebody squeals
It's the lure of easy money, it's got a very strong appeal
Perhaps you'd understand it better standing in my shoes
It's the ultimate enticement, it's the smuggler's blues
Smuggler's blues

You see it in the headlines, you hear it every day
They say they're gonna stop it, but it doesn't go away
They move it through Miami and sell it in L.A.
They hide it up in Telluride, I mean it's here to stay
It's propping up the governments in Columbia and Peru
You ask any D.E.A. man, he'll say there's nothing we can do
From the office of the president right down to me and you
Me and you
It's a losing proposition, but one you can't refuse
It's the politics of contraband, it's the smugglers' blues
Smuggler's blues


~~~~~~~~~~~~





"Electric Avenue"
Eddy Grant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtPk5IUbdH0


Boy! Boy!

Now in the street, there is violence
And-and a lots of work to be done
No place to hang out our washing
And-and I can't blame all on the sun

Oh no, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Oh, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Workin' so hard like a soldier
Can't afford a thing on TV
Deep in my heart, I abhor ya
Can't get food for the kid

Good God, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Ho, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Oh no
Oh no
Oh no
Oh no

Oh God, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Ho, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Who is to blame in one country?
Never can get to the one
Dealin' in multiplication
And they still can't feed everyone

Oh no, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Ho no, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Ho, out in the street
Out in the street
Out in the daytime
Out in the night

Oh, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Ho, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Out in the street
Out in the street
Out in the playground
In the dark side of town

Ho, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Hey, we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Ohh yeah
Rock it in the daytime
Rock it in the night
Rock it in my...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE

BY BILLY JOEL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g


Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

CHORUS:

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

CHORUS:

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no go

U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo

CHORUS:

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

CHORUS:

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon, back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

CHORUS:

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it...

We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...


~~~~~~~~~~~~




FOR AMERICA
Jackson Browne

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVyxjQ3JaKA


As if I really didn't understand
That I was just another part of their plan
I went off looking for the promise
Believing in the Motherland
And from the comfort of a dreamer's bed
And the safety of my own head
I went on speaking of the future
While other people fought and bled
The kid I was when I first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom that he found wasn't quite as sweet
When the truth was known
I have prayed for America
I was made for America
It's in my blood and in my bones
By the dawn's early light
By all I know is right
We're going to reap what we have sown

As if freedom was a question of might
As if loyalty was black and white
You hear people say it all the time-
"My country wrong or right"
I want to know what that's got to do
With what it takes to find out what's true
With everyone from the President on down
Trying to keep it from you

The thing I wonder about the Dads and Moms
Who send their sons to the Vietnams
Will they really think their way of life
Has been protected as the next war comes?
I have prayed for America
I was made for America
Her shining dream plays in my mind
By the rockets red glare
A generation's blank stare
We better wake her up this time

The kid I was when I first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom that he found wasn't quite as sweet
When the truth was known
I have prayed for America
I was made for America
I can't let go till she comes around
Until the land of the free
Is awake and can see
And until her conscience has been found


~~~~~~~~~~~~





"Gimme Some Truth"
John Lennon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10YeFhYGVJU


I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
Ive had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
Money for dope
Money for rope

I'm sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending, mamas little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth now

I've had enough of watching scenes
Of schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
Its money for dope
Money for rope

Ah, I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

Ive had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth


~~~~~~~~~~~~




What's so funny about Peace Love and Understanding

Elvis Costello

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssd3U_zicAI


As I walk through this wicked world
Searching for light in the darkness of insanity
I ask my self is all hope lost
Is there only pain and hatred and misery

And each time I feel like this in side
There's one thing I want to know
What's so funny about peace love and understanding

As I walked on through trouble times
My spirit gets so down hearted some times
So where are the strong
And who are the trusted
And where is harmony
Sweet harmony

Cause each time I feel it slip away
Just makes me wanna cry
What's so funny about peace love and understanding oh ooh
What's so funny about peace love and understanding

So where are the strong
And who are the trusted
And where is harmony
Sweet harmony

Cause each time I feel it slip away
Just makes me wanna cry
What's so funny about peace love and understanding oh ooh
What's so funny about peace love and understanding

What's so funny about peace love and understanding oh ooh
What's so funny about peace love and understanding


~~~~~~~~~~~~





Militry Madness
written by Graham Nash,
sung by
Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czUx2gvjdJk


In an upstairs room in Blackpool
By the side of a northern sea
The army had my father
And my mother was having me

Military Madness was killing my country
Solitary Sadness comes over me

After the school was over
And I moved to the other side
I found another country
But I never lost my pride

Military Madness was killing the country
Solitary sadness creeps over me

And after the wars are over
And the body count is finally filed
I hope that The Man discovers
What’s driving the people wild

Military madness is killing your country
So much sadness, between you and me
War, War, War, War, War, War



~~~~~~~~~~~~




"Student Demonstration Time"
Beach Boys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aK8f2mGVgw

[Based on "Riot in Cell Block Number 9" by Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller]

Starting out with Berkeley Free Speech
And later on at People's Park
The winds of change fanned into flames
Student demonstrations spark
Down to Isla Vista where police felt so harassed
They called the special riot squad of the L. A. County Sheriff

Well there's a riot going on
There's a riot going on
There's a riot going on
Student demonstration time

The violence spread down South to where Jackson State brothers
Learned not to say nasty things about Southern policemen's mothers
Nothing much was said about it and really next to nothing done
The pen is mightier than the sword, but no match for a gun

Well there's a riot going on
There's a riot going on
Well there's a riot going on
'Cause it's student demonstration time

America was stunned on May 4, 1970
When rally turned to riot up at Kent State University
They said the students scared the Guard
Though the troops were battle dressed
Four martyrs earned a new degree
The Bachelor of Bullets
I know we're all fed up with useless wars and racial strife
But next time there's a riot, well, you best stay out of sight

Well there's a riot going on
There's a riot going on
Well there's a riot going on
Student demonstration time

Stay away when there's a riot going on
Student demonstration
Stay away when there's a riot going on
Student demonstration
Stay away when there's a riot going on
Student demonstration
Stay away when there's a riot going on
It's student demonstration
Stay away when there's a riot going on
Student demonstration
Stay away when there's a riot going on
Student demonstration
Stay away when there's a riot going on
It's student demonstration
Stay away when there's a riot going on
Student demonstration


~~~~~~~~~~~~



"Subterranean Homesick Blues"
Bob Dylan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0

Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in a trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off

Look out, kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend
A man in a coon-skin cap
In a pig pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten.

Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin' that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone's tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the DA

Look out, kid
Don't matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don't tie no bows
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plainclothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.

Ah, get sick, get well
Hang around an ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is gonna sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write Braille
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail

Look out kid
You're gonna get hit
By losers, cheaters
Six-time users
Hanging 'round the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool is
Lookin' for a new fool
Don't follow leaders
Watch the parkin' meters.

Ah, get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift

Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~




"Ohio"
Neil Young

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRE9vMBBe10


Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~




20th Century Man
The Kinks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrmQB38aT5U

[Verse 1]
This is the age of machinery
A mechanical nightmare
The wonderful world of technology
Napalm, hydrogen bombs, biological warfare

This is the twentieth century
But too much aggravation
It's the age of insanity
What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem

Ain't got no ambition, I'm just disillusioned
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't want, I don't wanna be here

My mama said she can't understand me
She can't see my motivation
Just give me some security
I'm a paranoid schizoid product of the twentieth century

You keep all your smart modern writers
Give me William Shakespeare
You keep all your smart modern painters
I'll take Rembrandt, Titian, Da Vinci and Gainsborough

Girl, we gotta get out of here
We gotta find a solution
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't want, I don't want to die here
Girl, we gotta get out of here
We gotta find a solution
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't want, I don't want to be here

[Bridge]

I was born in a welfare state
Ruled by bureaucracy
Controlled by civil servants
And people dressed in grey
Got no privacy, got no liberty
'Cause the twentieth century people
Took it all away from me

Don't wanna get myself shot down
By some trigger happy policeman
Gotta keep a hold on my sanity
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna die here

My mama says she can't understand me
She can't see my motivation
Ain't got no security
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna die here

I don't want twentieth century, man
No more twentieth century man
I don't want twentieth century, man

This is the twentieth century
But too much aggravation
This is the edge of insanity
I'm a twentieth century man but I don't wanna be here


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



"War"
Edwin Starr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d8C4AIFgUg


War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, uh-huh, uh-huh

War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again, y'all

War, huh, good god
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me

Oh war, I despise
'Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
War means tears to thousands of mothers' eyes
When their sons go off to fight and lose their lives

I said, war, huh, good god, y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again

War, huh, whoa-oh-whoa-oh, Lord
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me

War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreak
War, friend only to the undertaker

Oh, war, is an enemy to all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest within the younger generation
Induction then destruction, who wants to die?

Oh, war, huh, good god, y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it, say it, say it

War, huh, uh-huh, yeah, uh
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me

War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War, it got one friend, that's the undertaker

Oh, war has shattered many a young man's dreams
Made him disabled, bitter and mean
Life is much too short and precious to spend fighting wars these days
War can't give life, it can only take it away

Oh, war, huh, good god, y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again

War, huh, whoa-oh-whoa-oh, Lord
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me

War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker

Peace, love and understanding, tell me
Is there no place for them today?
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But lord knows there's got to be a better way

Oh, war, huh, good god, y'all
What is it good for?
You tell me, (nothing) say it, say it, say it, say it

War, huh, good god, yeah, huh
What is it good for?
Stand up and shout it (nothing)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~





"Fortunate Son"
Creedence Clearwater Revival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7qkQewyubs


Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail To The Chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no, no
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no

Yeah!
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer, "More! More! More!" Yo

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, one

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no no no
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no no no


~~~~~~~~~~~~~




"I Found Out"
John Lennon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lOQf-reSiQ


I told you before, stay away from my door
Don't give me that brother, brother, brother, brother
The freaks on the phone, won't leave me alone
So don't give me that brother, brother, brother, brother No!
I, I found out!
I, I found out!

Now that I showed you what I been through
Don't take nobody's word what you can do
There ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky
Now that I found out I know I can cry

I, I found out!
I, I found out!

Some of you sitting there with your cock in your hand
Don't get you nowhere don't make you a man
I heard something 'bout my Ma and my Pa
They didn't want me so they made me a star

I, I found out!
I, I found out!

Old Hare Krishna got nothing on you
Just keep you crazy with nothing to do
Keep you occupied with pie in the sky
There ain't no guru who can see through your eyes

I, I found out!
I, I found out!

I seen through junkies, I been through it all
I seen religion from Jesus to Paul
Don't let them fool you with dope and cocaine
No one can harm you, feel your own pain

I, I found out!
I, I found this out!
I, I found out!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~




"American Idiot"
Green Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9NFs7qPwuk

Don't wanna be an American idiot
Don't want a nation under the new mania
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mind fuck America

Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn't meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We're not the ones who're meant to follow
For that's enough to argue

Well maybe I'm the faggot America
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda
Now everybody do the propaganda
And sing along to the age of paranoia

Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn't meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We're not the ones who're meant to follow
For that's enough to argue

Don't want to be an American idiot
One nation controlled by the media
Information age of hysteria
It's calling out to idiot America

Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn't meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We're not the ones who're meant to follow
For that's enough to argue

~~~~~~~~~~

Tom MacDonald




"I Hate Hip-Hop"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7lLgDVjYn4

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ah
Okay
Yeah

I'm not a Youtube rapper, come on give me credit
I don't need to do reaction's to get views, okay I said it
Not a label rapper, I'm way too offensive (Too offensive)
Go ahead and call me clickbait, I made millions independent
I'm not a mumble rapper, Y'all understand every single word
I'm not takin' Xanax, rappin' 'bout money, liquor, and girls
Not a Soundcloud rapper, I got hits you actually have heard
I exist outside the internet, done shows around the world
Not a boombap rapper, I'm not stuck in 1990
I like Wu-tang, But that vibe is kinda old and grimy
Not a conscious rapper, all those rappers sound like SJ dubs
Not a gangster rapper, cool enough without being a thug
I'm not country rap, I don't play guitar, I don't drive a truck
I don't chew tobacco, Get the Chevy stuck 10 feet of mud
I'm not horror-core, I don't paint my face
I don't trip, I can only be myself and I am Tom Macdonald, bitch

I think I gotta let them know
Ayy, Ayy, Ayy
And let me say it from the soul man

I hate Hip Hop
How dare you call me a rapper
When all these rappers don't have nothin' left to say
I hate Hip Hop
It's full of liars and actors
These little rappers about as real as they names
I hate Hip Hop
Keep the glits and the glamour
'Cause all these rapper's are puttin' kids in they graves
I hate Hip Hop
The whole culture is cancer
They'll kill their momma for some clout and a chain

I'm not a mainstream rapper, I think they're pathetic
I don't compromise my vision, just so I can sell some records (No)
I'm not underground, that means it's hard to sell it (Hard to sell it)
I've got Master P, love master being catchy with a message
I'm not whiteboy rapper, Actually got that juice and call the vibe
Pumpin' Eminem, don't mean that all you boomers really rhyme
Not a corny rapper, spittin' every song in double time
Say so much and don't say nothin', bunch of garbage in your lines
Not a lil rapper, I ain't auto-tunein' every song
I ain't makin' tunes exclusively by drinkin' at the club
Not a candy rapper, I ain't makin' albums full off pop
I ain't Macklemore, or Logic, Lil Dicky or Asher Roth
I ain't emo rap, I ain't sheddin' tears
I don't cut myself, I don't romanticize suicide up on mental health
I ain't back-pack rap, that's my grandad's rap
Please don't take this as a diss
I'm just Tom Macdonald, bitch

I think I gotta let them know
Ayy, Ayy, Ayy
And let me say it from the soul man

I hate Hip Hop
How dare you call me a rapper
When all these rappers don't have nothin' left to say
I hate Hip Hop
It's full of liars and actors
These little rappers about as real as they names
I hate Hip Hop
Keep the glits and the glamour
'Cause all these rapper's are puttin' kids in they graves
I hate Hip Hop
The whole culture is cancer
They'll kill their momma for some clout and a chain

I'm so used of hearin' people hate, I get it
Hip Hop hates me, and I hate it too it's been this way forever
I don't move like them, I'll never be accepted (No, no, no)
I got rich without a co-sign, I will hold you 'cause you're jealous
I don't want the clout, I don't need a friend
Y'all can keep your beats
Never signed a deal, so every dollar goes to me
I been humble, ain't been flexin'
Ain't been showin' off my blessings
Maybe y'all should take a second to make sure y'all get the message
I'm in beast mode, check the teeth glow
I don't need dough
Everything is Vendi, Gucci, Sace Louis V, Oh
Nothin' new to me, no
Too much green to keep, vro
Hundred thousand dollars every hour that I sleep for
I don't talk about it, 'cause the way my momma raised me good
All these rappers hate me, If they don't I'll say they maybe should
H-O-G, the army they say crazy is as crazy does
So watch yourself, blood on our hands
I'll bother us we bath in blood

I hate Hip Hop
How dare you call me a rapper
When all these rappers don't have nothin' left to say
I hate Hip Hop
It's full of liars and actors
These little rappers about as real as they names
I hate Hip Hop
Keep the glits and the glamour
'Cause all these rapper's are puttin' kids in they graves
I hate Hip Hop
The whole culture is cancer
They'll kill their momma for some clout and a chain


~~~~~~~~~~~

"Politically Incorrect"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ita4g_oDyns

(Look I'll be offending somebody)

My generation's afraid of opinions, y'all so intolerant
They're ashamed of themselves 'cause they're privileged and white or they're black and the opposite
You get charged with harassment for hugging a woman or giving a compliment
Y'all way too sensitive yet, offended to death, bring all the coffins in

I swear that y'all are mad at everything that don't affect your lives (hey)
I swear that y'all believe that being offended just means that you're right (hey)
I swear that y'all just want to be the only ones who everyone likes (hey)
I swear if I swear at you ninnies you probably so triggered you'd cry

And nobody want to be real
Everyone's scared of how everyone feels
We've become so ultrasensitive and hyper-tolerant that honestly honesty's gon be illegal

It's crazy y'all get so shocked and bothered from people saying things that aren't responsible
If that seems logical, y'all are weak then
If someone says retard it ruins your weekend

And that's retarded
My hair been in braids 'cause it looks hella awesome
Y'all like to scream I appropriate culture but I don't hear nothing, I'm paying homage

Y'all are just trying to get likes on your comments
Googling quotes that are socially conscious
And saying you're woke doesn't make you a prophet, it makes you a liar and stupid obnoxious

Always on that blah blah, y'all should keep it to yourselves
Miss me with that drama, you must think I'm someone else
'Cause y'all don't wanna fuck with me
'Cause I don't feel the pressure, no I will not be censored
I'm not afraid that's why they fuck with me
My name will be remembered, and I will live forever
I bet y'all hate that y'all are stuck with me

Happy Halloween, for one evening only you wear what you want
Unless it's a poncho or head-dress or afro, you'll piss someone off
I'd say "Merry Christmas" but I know that it's 'bout to be gone
If religious freedom's such a dire issue why you dressed like a priest in October for fun?

Don't let 'em censor your thoughts
Don't let 'em make you regret that you talked
Don't let 'em tell you that nice is the lot, trying to make you all righter when nothing is wrong, yeah

Words hurt you, clothes hurt you, memes hurt you, jokes hurt you, weed hurts you
Half the time you don't even probably know what hurts you
But you super mad, trust we heard you

You a pawn in a broken system
Are you triggered much? You've been showing symptoms
Y'all are so addicted to being hopeless victims, y'all could crash a plane and blame the road conditions
And your only sickness is your social vision
Makes you scared of choices but you pro decision
So you march a lot but never go the distance, yelling way to loud until no one listens

Always on that blah blah, y'all should keep it to yourselves
Miss me with that drama, you must think I'm someone else
'Cause y'all don't wanna fuck with me
'Cause I don't feel the pressure, no I will not be censored
I'm not afraid that's why they fuck with me
My name will be remembered, and I will live forever
I bet y'all hate that y'all are stuck with me

"You look like the devil," you sound like some Christians
You just want a medal for asking permission
You just want a pat on the back in addition to being so tolerant

Fine I admit it
You're nice or you're better, you're right or you're brilliant
Most sensitive creatures in all of existence
My freedom of thoughts should be censored, imprisoned, the world would be better if we weren't so different

Always on that blah blah, y'all should keep it to yourselves
Miss me with that drama, you must think I'm someone else
'Cause y'all don't wanna fuck with me
'Cause I don't feel the pressure, no I will not be censored
I'm not afraid that's why they fuck with me
My name will be remembered, and I will live forever
I bet y'all hate that y'all are stuck with me

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Cloned Rappers"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgqt7Wd0ms

The Illuminati knows the answers
Takin' bone samples to clone rappers
Put the artists in prison to silence their vision
Genetic copies goin' home after
They look different, eyes shifted
Smile missin', skin lifted, it's scientific
If they can't control you they erase the old you
Get your duplication to enforce their message
They cloned Gucci, cloned Kodak
Cloned Eminem, he ain't rapped since Encore, know that
Clonin' rappers when they overdose
To keep makin' money from producin' more tracks
The game is a sham
Turnin' the artists who challenged to sacrificial lambs
The labels and devils are shakin' hands
Creating our artists in labs

The executions have been televised, oh
They're on TMZ like every night
They take our heroes, give us weaponized clones
The revolution won't be televised

I can't be replicated
Copy the attitude and the chains
But no one will ever do me the same
I can't be replicated
Try to control me then guess again
Rebellion lives in my DNA
I can't be replicated
Duplicated, imitated, fabricated, eliminated
No I can't be replicated
The system designed me to be a slave
I'm the glitch in their matrix they can't escape
I can't be replicated

If they killed the rappers who were spittin' truth
They wouldn't have a messenger that could reach the youths
So they duplicate physically, implant abilities
Replicate tattoos in cloning facilities
Indie contracts say "Worldwide"
Label contracts say "Universal"
For all of time and all forms
They own all of your music, your image, your name, and your person
Weird right? I know you don't think that it's facts
But for fifty thousand and a hair sample you can clone your dog or your dyin' cat
It's another way for them to win the war by weaponizing important celebrities
Don't kill your foes just clone their Gods then you'll control all of your enemies

The executions have been televised, oh
They're on TMZ like every night
They take our heroes, give us weaponized clones
The revolution won't be televised

I can't be replicated
Copy the attitude and the chains
But no one will ever do me the same
I can't be replicated
Try to control me then guess again
Rebellion lives in my DNA
I can't be replicated
Duplicated, imitated, fabricated, eliminated
No I can't be replicated
The system designed me to be a slave
I'm the glitch in their matrix they can't escape
I can't be replicated

You can see the difference in they face now (Face now)
Casualties of money and the fame (Fame)
Posin' for the cameras with their fake smile (Fake smile)
A clone of someone who they used to be

I can't be replicated
Copy the attitude and the chains
But no one will ever do me the same
I can't be replicated
Try to control me then guess again
Rebellion lives in my DNA
I can't be replicated
Duplicated, imitated, fabricated, eliminated
No I can't be replicated
The system designed me to be a slave
I'm the glitch in their matrix they can't escape
I can't be replicated
(Replicated, replicated, replicated, replicated, replicated, replicated)


~~~~~~~~~~

"People So Stupid"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6FmwBPDT-w

Hi

I'm praying that the world changes soon
Can't get a doobie on a plane but there's Uzis in our schools
Every dude who touched a boob or a booty getting #MeToo'd
What you expect from the kids who went to Hooters after school
We're all triggered and defensive, we're all racist and we're sexist
We all grew up watching South Park, how are we offended?
Now being fat is beautiful? Name a thing that you can't do?
Jumping jacks, run a mile, live past forty-two?
Man it used to be cool to just flip a bird to the system
And now it's trendy to be triggered and pretend you're a victim
"It's my race, it's my weight, it's because I'm a Christian
I hate the internet and anyone who has an opinion"
And everybody angry if you say "white", 'kay, fine
Pass me the brush and I'll paint my face till the shade's right
Let's talk about abortion, sorry, tell me how this works?
Bacteria is life on Mars but a heartbeat isn't life on earth? Weird

People are so stupid
Why are y'all so stupid?
Get better problems, I swear to God that y'all want 'em
You're so dumb
People so stupid, people so dumb
People so boo-hoo, wah-wah-wah
Get better issues, we're gonna run out of tissues
It's so dumb

I'm a hater 'cause I can't relate to gay pride?
Call me homophobic because I don't wanna date guys? 'Kay, tight
I for one am not surprised the world declined along the way
Give trophies to children for losing just 'cause they decide to play
We exercise our right to vote then hate the politicians, ay
This is a democracy, it's partly your decision, ay
This is weird, feels like this a different year
If I identify as a female then will my balls and penis disappear?
Children wanna gender switch and hating men is feminist
Depression and anxiety are trendy, we're too sensitive
Invented eighty genders, now the world is not accepting it
Then gave them more attention than normal women and men can get
What a contradiction, being human is so tragic
Focus on minorities, ignoring all the masses
Hallelujah everyone, activism saved the planet
No more plastic straws in paper, just paper straws wrapped in plastic, congratulations

People are so stupid
Why are y'all so stupid?
Get better problems, I swear to God that y'all want 'em
You're so dumb
People so stupid, people so dumb
People so boo-hoo, wah-wah-wah
Get better issues, we're gonna run out of tissues
It's so dumb

Look, I get it, it's like the world is going crazy
Seems like a school shooting happens almost daily
The racism, rape culture, hatred that we're facing
Is way too ingrained for our hashtags to change it
We've become so lazy and complacent, afraid of our generation
We think activism's Instagramming memes and complaining
It's a problem when there's actually actions you could be taking
But you're triggered so you just cry like a baby

People are so stupid
Why are y'all so stupid?
Get better problems, I swear to God that y'all want 'em
You're so dumb
People so stupid, people so dumb
People so boo-hoo, wah-wah-wah
Get better issues, we're gonna run out of tissues
It's so dumb




~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The Music Industry"




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8P9K4hRbs4

Look at all the rappers that the games killed
Record labels making billions, why can't artists even pay bills?
You get taken advantage of if you take deals
They're the devil, ain't no angels in the outfield
You get you chains and a bracelet, maybe a fake grill
You get you paid and you're famous, baby, it ain't real
Couple millie think you made it, but the record label take it
When you overdose on alcohol and pain pills

Gimme a pen and pad, I'm gonna get in the lab
I'm gonna kill 'em with tracks, I'mma deliver the facts
Nobody holding me back, labels are tricking the fans
Rappers are industry plans, everything planned

I ain't brain dead, never signed a deal, it don't make sense
Never let a label manipulate what I've made yet
Invading the industry independently, I break in
Killed the gatekeepers with a blade, leave the gat ban
Mainstream rappers see the fame, wanna break bread
Soul ain't for sale, never sellout tryna pay rent
Illuminati puppets, the industry hail satan
The devil making deals, I won't shake hands
Independent, underrated, these other rappers all hate it
Going viral with no label, with no manager or agent
Call my momma, I've got commas, and the money going crazy
And she crying, tryna tell me that she's happy for her baby, like

Ooh aye
Finally got that deal, got a pen in my hand
Ooh aye
Like how you tryna buy who the hell I am?

You can keep your cash I'm not that broke, I won't sign no contract, I do me
Y'all are cancelled, stealing people's dreams, how can you sleep?
It's a rap pose, throwing cash in Lambos
I'm independent till I'm dead, I quit the music industry

Artists really only wanna chase dreams
We're broke all our lives, begging labels, "Please take me"
Tricked us into thinking, getting deals is a great thing
Spent our whole careers tryna break free
The fans say they love us, tryna give 'em music they need
Lable doesn't like it, that ain't mainstream
You're looking in the mirror like, "What happened, man? This ain't me"
I guess that I just don't see what they see

Gimme a mic and a booth, I'm gonna die for the truth
I'm gonna fight for the youth, I don't got nothing to lose
Labels are hiding the proof, look, I'mma give you a clue
Illuminati symbols are the logos major labels use

They're calling me an industry plant, I giggle and laugh
I'm the total opposite of what they want, I'm spitting the facts
I make songs about the honest things you whisper to fam
I've exposed the government, they wanna kill me for that
I put the pedophile sex cults on infinite blast
I leaked the industry secrets, and I did it with rap
How dare you try to say that my intentions aren't acting?
That my vision is a pillar of their intricate plan?
No one to manage my decisions and the pending gold plaques
No, you won't see my initials on official contracts
Independent till I'm dead or I'm a very old man
Middle finger, I'm a missile that they can't hold back, like

Ooh aye
Finally got that deal, got a pen in my hand
Ooh aye
Like how you tryna buy who the hell I am?

You can keep your cash I'm not that broke, I won't sign no contract, I do me
Y'all are cancelled, stealing people's dreams, how can you sleep?
It's a rap pose, throwing cash in Lambos
I'm independent till I'm dead, I quit the music industry

Miss me with all that industry talk
Worked my whole life for the things that I have
Why would I give you the keys to the car
If you just gon' drive while I pay for the gas?
I ain't gon' come to your meetings no more
Told you already ain't giving you half
Y'all can't wait to get your feet in the door
Then lock me outside while you steal from my fans

Keep your cash I'm not that broke, I won't sign no contract, I do me
Y'all are cancelled, stealing people's dreams, how can you sleep?
It's a rap pose, throwing cash in Lambos
I'm independent till I'm dead, I quit the music industry
Keep your cash I'm not that broke, I won't sign no contract, I do me
Y'all are cancelled, stealing people's dreams, how can you sleep?
It's a rap pose, throwing cash in Lambos
I'm independent till I'm dead, I quit the music industry


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Clown World"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koO35JqBQMI

You worry 'bout leavin' a better planet for our kids
How 'bout leavin' better kids for our planet?
Entire generation offended at everything
Gettin' mad that a human thinks all lives matter
We don't need Black or White, or left or right
All we need is common sense, we need balance
We're all in the same boat, why you tryna make holes?
If they sink, we sink, this is madness
I'm offended that you're offended by me takin' offence
Trump can't build a wall, why does your house have a fence?
I believe in two genders, I'm not mad at the rest
I'm just confused when a dude has a beard and some breasts
We won't always agree, nope
I don't hate all police, nope
I don't think that the system's racist
I just think the system hates people

I think fighting violence with more violence is what they want
Viruses and riots, people dyin', we won't stay home
Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, what's all this division for?
It's modern segregation, this is setting up a civil war

Burn this circus down 'cause the world is full of clowns
They're all stupid and they're proud, painted smiles on they mouths
I don't hang with bozos, homie, I can't be around you
Anyone who knows me knows my feet don't fit in clown shoes

When I was a child, the only races that we hated
Were the ones that we ran and didn't win
Then we stopped playin' with each other, started hatin' on each other
Started noticin' the colour of our skin
Christians and Atheists, immigrants, patriots
We love the country, but we are not savin' it
Wages don't raise to the rate of inflation
And half of the country hates all of the nation, it's
Funny that we think the world owes us somethin'
All the phones got smart, but the people so dumb
We care more about the likes on a selfie than our moms
And the only time we ever speak the truth's when we're drunk
We won't always agree, nope
I don't hate all police, nope
Your thoughts and opinions ain't facts
And they are not defining my reality, nope

I think picking sides divides, it's probably what has got us here
United States is great regardless, that's what we've forgotten here
Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, what's all this division for?
It's modern segregation, this is setting up a civil war

Burn this circus down 'cause the world is full of clowns
They're all stupid and they're proud, painted smiles on they mouths
I don't hang with bozos, homie, I can't be around you
Anyone who knows me knows my feet don't fit in clown shoes

They tell you, "Be yourself", and then they judge you on the internet
'Til everybody hates you for it
If Jesus was alive, I swear to God that y'all would cancel him
'Cause lately bein' negative's the real new normal, ya
If you're thick, you're fat, you're rich, you're bad
You're poor, you're Black, you're White, you're wack, they lie, it's facts
My generation needs a bunch of free condoms
'Cause common sense ain't that common
This is what they wanted, this is how they planned it
This is to control everyone on the planet
Then we put each other in caskets, protest in panic
And they take advantage to manage the damage
We won't always agree, nope
Freedom doesn't come free, nope
There was people fighting, dyin' overseas
So that you could have freedom and be home

I think the elites are real, but they ain't drinkin' babies' blood
They're creating chaos so they have somethin' to save you from
Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, what's all this division for?
It's modern segregation, this is setting up a civil war

Burn this circus down 'cause the world is full of clowns
They're all stupid and they're proud, painted smiles on they mouths
I don't hang with bozos, homie, I can't be around you
Anyone who knows me knows my feet don't fit in clown shoes

~~~~~~~~~~

"Brainwashed"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCBNwGHPZ2M

Half the country fell asleep but they scream woke
We're distracted by vaccines and TV shows
Politics, celebrity, gossip, popular neat quotes
Black lives, white lives, which lives mean most?
We only dedicate one day to remember our fallen soldiers
The men and women who died young
But if you come out the closet as Caitlyn Jenner
You're a hero and you get a whole pride month
The most dangerous pandemic's propaganda from these clowns
Only mask that's gonna save us is duct tape on they mouths
Don't speak, we don't need to defund police
Need to defund the media who lies through they teeth, like
Big pharma doesn't cure you, dog
'Cause every patient that gets cured is a customer lost
And big oil runs the world, the only wars that get fought
Are with the countries who have natural resources they want

Heard 'em claiming if a white man braids his hair
And likes rap, he's appropriating culture
But if a white man acts too white he's white trash
He's a racist, he's a bigot, he's a monster

Let's just have the conversation
Not every liberal is dumb, not all Republicans are racist
The government wants everybody fighting with their neighbors
'Cause they know that if we get along, we'll probably go against 'em

They can't stop us 'cause we're ready to fight
Try to brainwash us but we won't let freedom die
The whole world's brainwashed
Everybody pick a team, start a riot in the streets
The whole world's brainwashed
It's us against them, it ain't you against me

How did monkeys become people and people turned into sheep?
They put fluoride in the water that's keeping us all asleep
Claim they want what's best for us, I find that hard to believe
'Cause they been selling us cigarettes since we was eighteen
Fake news, fake woke, distract, and divide
You're either right or you're left or you're black or you're white
Big tech don't need a microchip to hack in your life
'Cause the phone inside your pocket is a tracking device
And I don't know what I'm more sick of, rappers or Joe Biden
Looking like he ate a hundred Xanax for dinner
'Cause censoring the president and kicking him off Twitter
Is a bigger threat to freedom than foreign ballistic missiles
You don't trust the police or the government but you want
People giving up their right to own a firearm
Why would you be comfortable if police and the government
The only people on the planet with the right to buy a gun
White privilege getting amplified to reinforce division
It convinces white people that they're favored by their skin
And black people getting angry 'cause they're told they're treated different
So the conflict is between us and never with the system

Let's just have the conversation
Not every liberal is dumb, not all Republicans are racist
The government wants everybody fighting with their neighbors
'Cause they know that if we get along, we'll probably go against 'em

They can't stop us 'cause we're ready to fight
Try to brainwash us but we won't let freedom die
The whole world's brainwashed
Everybody pick a team, start a riot in the streets
The whole world's brainwashed
It's us against them, it ain't you against me

Step one, train the people only to consume
Step two, infiltrate adults with the news
Step three, indoctrinate the children through the schools
And the music and the apps on the phones that they use
Step four, separate the right from the left
Step five, separate the white from the black
Step six, separate the rich from the poor
Use religion and equality to separate 'em more
Step seven, fabricate a problem made of lies
Step eight, put it on the news every night
Step nine, when people start to fight and divide
Take control, this is called situational design

They can't stop us 'cause we're ready to fight
Try to brainwash us but we won't let freedom die
The whole world's brainwashed
Everybody pick a team, start a riot in the streets
The whole world's brainwashed
It's us against them, it ain't you against me


~~~~~~~~~~~~

"No Lives Matter"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t86ClLM3ZGY

Hip hop died, it's full of guys who cannot even rap (facts)
Media dividing us by colors, white or black (facts)
If you believe in Jesus, these days Christians get attacked (facts)
If you don't hate police then everybody thinks you're wack

And everything's so connected
Black Lives Matter got so aggressive
White folks who agree can't support the message
Both sides go to war 'cause they don't respect it
Our social climate from the global tension
Turned to total violence and a whole depression
We could unify and then all go against them
But we let 'em divide us with votes and elections

(Ay) the music we bump, all about shooting guns and doing drugs (ay, whoa)
The things that we want are promoted subliminally through the songs like
You need a fast car, you need designer clothes, you need a rap star
To tell you to start popping pills, hit the blunt and go live at the club till you're broke
It's all controlled by the elites, put fake news all over our screens
Convincing the right to go fight with the left and distract from the fact it's each other we need, uh
Divided by race and religion, segregated into teams, uh
You're a white supremacist, if you're not, I guess you Antifa

Screaming from the rooftops, beatdown, battered
Turned us on each other, now no lives matter
If we do what the news wants, blood gon' splatter
Turn us on each other till no lives matter

Freedom's dead, if you have an opinion, take it back (facts)
People hate the president, if you don't then you trash (facts)
Indoctrinate the nation using news and mainstream rap (facts)
The government abuses us, it's all part of the plan (facts)

And it's so confusing
Black Lives Matter is a valuable movement
But All Lives Matter ain't racist or stupid
It's non-black humans who don't feel included
All colors fall under laws that govern
The whole country and we all suffer
We're all broke and nobody recovers
Until we accept that we're all brothers

(Ay) the music we make, all about big booties and getting paid (ay, whoa)
We watch the news and it fills up our brains with violence, and riots, and race, like
This is a race war, you need to hate more, get what you came for
You need some songs about Xanax and violence so you can escape more
What a vicious cycle we can't break away from, they control the culture, they control the paper
They're indoctrinating a whole generation till the patriots start to hate the nation

The music we love make us dumb and addicted
The news that we watch is brainwashing the children
The viruses, riots, and racist conditions
Ain't problems, they're symptoms of life in this system

Screaming from the rooftops, beatdown, battered
Turned us on each other, now no lives matter
If we do what the news wants, blood gon' splatter
Turn us on each other till no lives matter

The music will make you dumb, the media makes you hate
And they control 'em both, there ain't no escape
They put the world in a state of chaos, economy crashing and massive layoffs
Black against white or it's left versus right, divide and conquer and control is the payoff

Screaming from the rooftops, beatdown, battered
Turned us on each other, now no lives matter
If we do what the news wants, blood gon' splatter
Turn us on each other till no lives matter


~~~~~~~~~~~

"Fake Woke"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l6JUNFAJ9o

I think it's crazy I'm the one who they labeled as controversial
And Cardi B is the role model for twelve year old girls
There's rappers pushing Xanax at the top of the Billboard
But if I mention race in a song I'm scared I'll get killed for it
It's backwards, it's getting exponentially dumb
It's more difficult to get a job than purchase a gun
Eminem used to gay bash and murder his mom
And now he doesn't want fans if they voted for Trump
We're ashamed to be American, you should probably love it
'Cause you have the right to say it and not get strung up in public
[Video version: "Cause you have the right to hate it and not get stoned to death in public"]
As children we were taught how to walk and talk
But the system wants adults to sit down and shut up
Cancel culture runs the world now, the planet went crazy
Label everything we say as homophobic or racist
If you're white then you're privileged, guilty by association
All our childhood heroes got MeToo'd or they're rapists

They never freed the slaves, they realized that they don't need the chains
They gave us tiny screens, we think we free 'cause we can't see the cage
They knew that race war would be the game they'd need to play
For people to pick teams, they use the media to feed the flame

They so fake woke, facts don't care about feelings
They know they won't tell me what to believe in
They so fake woke, same old, safe zones
They so fake woke, facts don't care about your feelings

I think it's crazy how these people screaming "facts" but they fake woke
Hate their neighbor 'cause he wears a mask or he stays home
Has a daughter but his favorite artist said he slays hoes
Picks her up from school, music slaps on the way home
Censorship's an issue 'cause they choose what they erase
There's a difference between hate speech and speech that you hate
I think Black Lives Matter was the stupidest name
When the system's screwing everyone exactly the same
I just wanna spend Thanksgiving Day with food and my family
Without being accused of celebrating native casualties
We got so divided as black and white and political
Republicans are bigots, libtards if you're liberal
There's riots in our streets and it's just getting worse
Y'all screaming defund the police, y'all are genius for sure
They're underfunded already, they're way too busy to work
Order food and call the cops, see what reaches you first

Segregation ended, that's a lie in itself
That was a strategy to make us think that we're trying to help
They knew that racism was hot if they designed it to sell
We buy up every single box and divide us ourselves

They so fake woke, facts don't care about feelings
They know they won't tell me what to believe in
They so fake woke, same old, safe zones
They so fake woke, facts don't care about your feelings

Use violence to get peace and wonder why it isn't working
That's like sleeping with a football team to try and be a virgin
Politicians are for sale and someone always makes the purchase
But you and I cannot afford it, our democracy is worthless
If a man has mental illness call him crazy, say it silently
When country's going crazy we accept it as society
Get sick and take a pill when the side effects get you high
You get addicted like these rappers dying fighting with sobriety
Censoring the facts turns our children into idiots
They claim it's for our safety, I'll tell you what it really is
Removing information that empowers all the citizens
The truth doesn't damage points of view that are legitimate
They're tryna change amen to amen and women
How'd we let them make praying a microaggression?
Instead of asking God for the strength to keep winning
We cheat to get ahead and then we ask Him for forgiveness

Feminism used to be the most righteous of fights
But these days it feels like they secretly hate guys
I don't trust anyone who bleeds for a week and don't die
I'm just kidding, but everything else that I said is right

They so fake woke, facts don't care about feelings
They know they won't tell me what to believe in
They so fake woke, same old, safe zones
They so fake woke, facts don't care about your feelings


~~~~~~~~~~~

"Dummies"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUfoDiX_U0w

I love the earth but I don't really wanna save it (what?)
Everything is sexist, homophobic, or it's racist
When life gives us lemons we're supposed to wanna change it
But my generation rather take some pills and escape it
Say that I'm transphobic if you wanna but one day I'll be a father
And I really hope my son don't grow up to be my daughter
I ain't tryna hurt your feelings, skin should be a little thicker
That's the problem, being honest got 'em triggered (triggered)
The kids are getting weaker 'cause they're sheltered by society
Pumpkin spice Ativan for seasonal anxiety (woo)
Wokeness has become a way to bully non-violently
And cancel everyone without improving on the life we lead

Without the white, there's no black, without the straight, there's no gay
Without the men, there's no women, without the night, there's no day
Without the idiots, we couldn't laugh at them when they fall
So maybe we need them after all

Ain't nobody dumber than y'all
Ain't nobody dumber than y'all (ay yo)
I guess you love to be wrong
Or you don't have the guts or the balls (ay yo)
Dumb, dumb dumb, dumb, dumb dumb
Dumb, dumb dumb, dee dee dumb dumb dumb
Dumb, dumb dumb, dumb, dumb dumb
Dumb, dumb dumb, dee dee dumb dumb

I love the earth but I don't really wanna save it
Everyone's obsessed with making stupid people famous (yo)
If a white boy raps then it's called appropriation
But Beyoncé does her hair blonde and people say she slayed it (weird)
Everybody's outraged, everybody's mad (big mad)
Our solutions to the issues don't make no sense
If stairs are the problem, we build wheelchair ramps (uh-huh)
We don't cancel feet or persecute the people with legs
The feminists who started their movement would be ashamed of so many things
They fought so you could vote not show your butthole on OnlyFans
I'm not a bad person 'cause you don't like what I say (yeah)
Call me homophobic just because I think straight (ew)

I love people even though we disagree (disagree)
I wish we could get WiFi signals from a tree (from a tree)
Then everyone would plant them and we'd probably save the planet for free
Too bad we only need 'em to breathe (hm, that's true)

Ain't nobody dumber than y'all
Ain't nobody dumber than y'all (ay yo)
I guess you love to be wrong
Or you don't have the guts or the balls (ay yo)
Dumb, dumb dumb, dumb, dumb dumb
Dumb, dumb dumb, dee dee dumb dumb dumb
Dumb, dumb dumb, dumb, dumb dumb
Dumb, dumb dumb, dee dee dumb dumb

I love the earth but I don't really wanna save it
Classifying people by their sex and race degrades them
But we still say straight white males are the worst of our population
Guess the labels are okay if they're Caucasian (that's right)
Our kids are living in their rooms, I swear we barely ever see 'em
Go outside sometime, there's fresh air you could be breathing
Put your phones down, play sports, do something illegal
Go and meet your families, they're probably nice people
These days you're a Nazi if you don't hate the police
They say that white folks think all Asian people are Chinese (hm)
I'm sorry, what kind of white people you mean? (Uh)
English, Scottish, German, Swedish, or Greek?

And Black Lives Matter is problematic (why?)
It excludes anyone without the pigment, it's automatic (okay)
I understand all the reasons it happened
But including all humans is the actual answer (oh no)

Ain't nobody dumber than y'all
Ain't nobody dumber than y'all (ay yo)
I guess you love to be wrong
Or you don't have the guts or the balls (ay yo)
Dumb, dumb dumb, dumb, dumb dumb
Dumb, dumb dumb, dee dee dumb dumb dumb
Dumb, dumb dumb, dumb, dumb dumb
Dumb, dumb dumb, dee dee dumb dumb

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Snowflakes"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCMwlorNEZk

If you lie to the government they'll put you in prison
But when they lie to all of us it's called being a politician
You think taking guns away will save our kids from the killings
But your pro-choice abortion kills way more children
If America's so terrible and racist
It probably isn't safe to encourage immigration, just saying
All the contradictions are embarrassing
You know who hates America the most? Americans
Trigger warnings used to be on TV for seizures
And now they're everywhere to protect millennials' feelings
He, she, his, him, hers, them, they
Screw a pronoun, 'cause everyone's a retard these days
I hear 'em preaching at a protest that hatred's the problem
But hating straight men, white folks, and Christians is common
Coca Cola telling people they should be less white
They preaching tolerance but if you disagree, they fight
There's a race war here, elections based on fear
Black lives only matter once every four years
Soldiers died for this country and every one of us benefits
Give welfare to the bums and forget about the veterans
Black folks and white folks divided by the news
But we're all the same, we are red, white, and blue
Ashamed to be American? Okay, that's cool
'Cause honestly, we are all ashamed of you too

Y'all are so fake, oh no
The forecast said that there'd be snowflakes, whoa-oh
You can't make us see it your way, no way, gasoline and propane
More flames, oh no
No more snowflakes

They set us up to fail, that's what they built the system for
Put an ammunition shop across the street from a liquor store
Empowering women used to be different than this before
The role models got OnlyFans or dance on a stripper pole
Screw it, I ain't tripping, I don't mean to be mean
But if our children are the future then our future is bleak
They take an Adderall to focus, hit McDonald's to eat
They're addicted to phones and they take Xanax to sleep
They blurred the lines dividing communism and democracy
In 2021 we paint the patriots as Nazis
The men playing women's sports get trophies for winning
Like great, let's celebrate a man for beating some women
If you're black, your life matters, you're supposed to embrace it
If you're rich or you're smart then you're probably Asian
If you're gay then you're brave, all of that I'm okay with
But if you're white, the stereotype is you are a racist
Blaming capitalism like that's the reason things are tough
While you tweet from an iPhone and sip on a Starbucks
You're supporting what you stand against you don't think you are but
A Percocet addict don't donate money to pharma
Damn dog, we're all afraid to speak the truth
And the more afraid we get, the more we hate the ones who do
You're ashamed to be American, okay that's cool
'Cause honestly, we are all ashamed of you too

Y'all are so fake, oh no
The forecast said that there'd be snowflakes, whoa-oh
You can't make us see it your way, no way, gasoline and propane
More flames, oh no
No more snowflakes

We could all get along but there's no stopping, ay
Everybody's wrong, that's a real problem, ay
They don't wanna hear it but they still talking, ay
Soon enough we running outta options, ay
This ain't gonna end till it's in a coffin, ay
We ain't gon' be friends till we try to squash it, ay
I don't know how we can make amends or we drop it
Snowflakes melt when it's hot, kid

Y'all are so fake, oh no
The forecast said that there'd be snowflakes, whoa-oh
You can't make us see it your way, no way, gasoline and propane
More flames, oh no
No more snowflakes


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"In God We Trust"
(feat. Nova Rockafeller)



They separate us from our neighbors and they call it social distancing
It's actually a bigger plan, it's called social conditioning
They took away our privacy there's always someone listening
They're rigging the elections, planning riots for the citizens
The government has always lied, it's history repeating
But the problem is the schools dumb you down so you believe 'em
If you try to speak the truth inside a Tweet then they delete it
Whole administration's Satanists who claim they praising Jesus
Every year there's a new name for enemies that we're facing, it's
Al-Qaeda, then ISIS, and now American patriots
Who woulda thought those who love the country the most
Would be hated on by folks who call America home
Both political parties are equally just as evil
They been working for themselves, don't give a damn 'bout the people
Black, white, yellow, brown, humanity needs you
'Cause united we stand, divided they will defeat you

The man on the news says the problem is me
I'm just a small-town boy with big American dreams
The world's going crazy and they lying to us
Don't know who to believe, so in God we trust

Y'all missing what was written in them pages
That was history they wrote, now you wanna change it
You racist, you hate this
Why you want us all to be locked up in cages?
I can't stand the left, everything they say's depressing
Ship 'em to the Middle East, they can learn oppression
Believe me, I mean this quite literal
I love liberty but I hate white liberals
Wear a mask, stay home, complain and moan
Talk about privilege on your phone in your Range Rove
Starbucks mango foo-foo whatever
The cloth I'm cut from can handle any weather
You just paper in the rain, we ain't the same
Stand for the flag, only kneel when I pray
I just pray we go back to the old days
Land of the free, home of the brave

The man on the news says the problem is me
I'm just a small-town boy with big American dreams
The world's going crazy and they lying to us
Don't know who to believe, so in God we trust

Yeah
Uh
I see through all the illusions
Refuse to humor rumors or accept that we are losing
Easy to get caught up, consumed by the consumer
Truth is so diluted people starve off they confusion
Comfort is the killer, your dreams execution
Cool with persecution if I make a contribution
Home of the brave look like a mental institution
And there will be revolution if we can't find resolution
Ain't a threat, it's a promise, stand up, pay homage
They tell lies, I'm being honest, testing time is upon us
I know that God got us so I'm fighting in His honor
Hear the cries of the crusaders as we strapping up our armor
Either set sail to higher ground or drown in they drama
If I die for what I love then my death'll be nirvana
We fighting for our freedom, don't believe what they been feeding
Be the change you wanna see, the warrior that we're needing

The man on the news says the problem is me
I'm just a small-town boy with big American dreams
The world's going crazy and they lying to us
Don't know who to believe, so in God we trust

We don't trust the news, the government, or pharma
We just want freedom that You have died to offer
We don't want the lies, the politics, or the drama
We just want the life that was promised by our fathers
We don't trust the news, the government, or pharma
We just want freedom that You have died to offer
We don't want the lies, the politics, or the drama
We just want the life that was promised by our fathers

The man on the news says the problem is me
I'm just a small-town boy with big American dreams
The world's going crazy and they lying to us
Don't know who to believe, so in God we trust


~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Riot"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOCw4MoQ3xc

Even if I never made a dollar again
I'm blessed
Never stop, givin' it up, white Pac in the flesh
Oh yes
Shove some rocks in my coffin, tell the cops that I'm dead
No stress
Hundred thousand fans coming to cut off your head
Slow death
Most illest singer, both middle fingers
Throw 'em in the air
I don't care till I'm a ghost or I'm crippled
I ain't gon' chill, homie sit down
I am still the biggest, who the bitch now?
I am independent
You are bitter and pathetic
When it's up, then it's up, then it's up, come and get down

Everywhere I goes a riot
People cryin'
Everywhere you go is silent
Why so quiet?
I show up and it's a riot
They excited
Where you going?
I feel like it
Why so quiet?

Even if I never made a dollar again
I'm blessed
Never stop, givin' it up, white Pac in the flesh
Oh yes
Till I'm dead I swear I'll do it my way
Gridin' out my life, now everyday is Friday
Independent legend, unheard of at my age
Middle finger flippin', got scribbles on my face
I will not go mainstream, dawg you know I hate pop
I'll be screamin' "fuck the industry" until my veins pop
That's a fake watch
Your whole gang opps
Ain't the same, stop
Ain't no one knows your name, that's why you always gotta name drop
Most illest singer, both middle fingers
Throw 'em in the air
I don't care till I'm a ghost or I'm crippled
I ain't gon' chill, homie what now?
I am still the biggest, sit the fuck down
I am under independent Mount Rushmore
You are a fucking nobody, a legit clown

Everywhere I goes a riot
People cryin'
Everywhere you go is silent
Why so quiet?
I show up and it's a riot
They excited
Where you going?
I feel like it
Why so quiet?

I only do dope shit, so sick
Homie why you cappin?
I'm a popstar, rockstar you a never has been
I do big things, wrist bling
You don't want this action
Put you six feet deep, that's an underground rapper

Everywhere I goes a riot
People cryin'
Everywhere you go is silent
Why so quiet?
I show up and it's a riot
They excited
Where you going?
I feel like it
Why so quiet?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The System"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OshNahVo9-c

Welcome to the world, baby boy, I'll paint you red and white and blue
The indoctrination starts as soon as you come out the womb
Pretty quick we'll make you stupid with curriculums at school
And if the classroom doesn't do the trick, we'll make you watch the news
Pick your team, right or left, pick the red pill or the blue
You can vote, but even if you win, still everyone will lose
Don't forget to buy designer because Gucci makes you cool
We prioritize material belongings over truth
Get a job that you can't stand so you can buy some cans of food
Go overseas and die for freedom, there's some oil we could use
Our democracy exists so that you think that you could choose
But our algorithms make you do what we want you to do
What's the problem, you're depressed? Society has you confused?
We got medication for you that you'll probably abuse
Go get married to a lady who also don't have a clue
And pump out a few babies that are just the same as you

Welcome to the system, everyone's a victim
Doesn't matter if you're black or white, it hates you all
Here inside the system, violence is a symptom
Fighting for what's right, but somehow everyone is wrong
Welcome to the system, everyone's a victim
Doesn't matter if you're black or white, it hates you all
Here inside the system, violence is a symptom
Fighting for what's right, but somehow everyone is wrong

Welcome to the world, baby girl, I'll paint you pink if that's okay
We'll encourage self-destruction through the music that you play
We divided all the men by tryin' politics and race
And honestly, it's workin' awesome, so for you we'll do the same
Never teachin' you to love yourself, inject you full of hate
Objectify your sexuality then blame you for the rape
And weaponize the differences that make our men and women great
And just to screw with you, erase the genders, everyone's the same
We'll empower you with rights to vote and fight for equal pay
Then have the men turn into women and you'll fight for them again
But you thought you had it figured out, but everything has changed
Welcome to the system, please enjoy your stay
Here's a Bible and a bottle of the cheapest booze we make
Find a man who can take care of you to fill the holes we made
Buy a house and settle down, fulfill your duty, procreate
And make a couple babies who will also do the same

Welcome to the system, everyone's a victim
Doesn't matter if you're black or white, it hates you all
Here inside the system, violence is a symptom
Fighting for what's right, but somehow everyone is wrong
Welcome to the system, everyone's a victim
Doesn't matter if you're black or white, it hates you all
Here inside the system, violence is a symptom
Fighting for what's right, but somehow everyone is wrong

Welcome to the world, everybody, I'ma paint you black and white
I'ma make you hate each other so that everyone will fight
I'ma give you all religion, let the righteous find the light
But I will also give you science to oppose the Word of Christ
And I'ma give you borders, they're imaginary lines
If you cross them, go to war and win when everybody dies
And I'ma give you money that you'll value more than life
And let the one percent have everything while you fight to survive
And then I'll give you politics, I'll call it left and right
And while you divide yourselves, I will conquer both the sides
Can't you see? I'm the system, my whole purpose is divide
What you choose will never matter because everything is mine

Welcome to the system, everyone's a victim
Doesn't matter if you're black or white, it hates you all
Here inside the system, violence is a symptom
Fighting for what's right, but somehow everyone is wrong
Welcome to the system, everyone's a victim
Doesn't matter if you're black or white, it hates you all
Here inside the system, violence is a symptom
Fighting for what's right, but somehow everyone is wrong
Welcome to the system, everyone's a victim
Doesn't matter if you're black or white, it hates you all
Here inside the system, violence is a symptom
Fighting for what's right, but somehow everyone is wrong

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FUCK THE G RIDE, I WANT THE MACHINES THAT MAKE EM!






Tommie Smith and John Carlos

1968 Olympics