If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.”—Thomas Jefferson

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny 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 our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” —C.S. Lewis

“The big difference between Republicans and liberal Democrats is the way each party views people. Republicans see us as individuals and respect our God-given human dignity. To liberal Democrats, we’re not individuals; we’re members of a herd with all the dignity of a cow or pig dependent on its owner for daily rations of hay or slop. Democrats see us as being white or as blacks or as straights or as gays, or as lesbians or as heterosexuals, or as rich or poor, or as Christians or as Jews or as Muslims, or as young or as old, as working or as retired, or as housewives or as career women. They submerge us into pools that define us as members of groups instead of as what we are as God sees us—as any father sees his children—each being different from one another, and each child being a separate and distinct individual with his or her own specific talents and abilities, and all deserving of his love... This Marxist view of human nature embraces group-think, despises individuality, and seeks to eliminate all vestiges of the dignity to which every human being created in the image and likeness of God is entitled. Only the hopes and aspirations of the groups matter, and they matter solely because they create dependency on the state—which seeks to supplant God as the source of all that is good and necessary for survival.” —Michael Reagan

 

“To render the justice of the war on our part the more conspicuous, the reluctance to commence it was followed by the earliest and strongest manifestations of a disposition to arrest its progress. The sword was scarcely out of the scabbard before the enemy was apprised of the reasonable terms on which it would be resheathed.” —James Madison

 

“Freedom was given to humanity by God. But, governments, if they can help it, never give freedom. They just hand out slavery with slogans.” —Taylor Caldwell

“To prevent inquiry is among the worst of evils.” —Thomas Holcroft

“The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.” —William Hazlitt

“That’s what a Congressman or a Senator is for—to see that too much money don’t accumulate in the national Treasury.” —Will Rogers

 

“If the New Hampshire debates settled anything, it’s which party has the stomach to take on radical Islam. The Democrats couldn't’t even identify the enemy. Not once. Really. We scanned the transcripts of Saturday’s debates hosted by ABC News and tallied up the references to Islamic terrorism. The rhetorical divide between Democrats and Republicans on that score alone—ignoring the yawning gaps in policy—is stunning. None of the four Democrat presidential candidates—despite running for an office that demands they lead the ongoing global war against Islamic extremists—could bring himself or herself to define the enemy we face as Islamic. Their combined references to ‘Islam’ or ‘Islamic’ totaled zero—even though moderator Charles Gibson prompted them with a question about ‘Islamic radicals’ threatening the U.S. with nuclear terrorism. But Democrats refused to go there. Out of respect for their constituency, there was a complete blackout regarding Islamic jihad... Republicans, on the other hand, called the enemy by its proper name. The candidates referred to terrorists and terrorism as ‘Islamic,’ while also citing radical ‘Islam’ as the problem, no less than 22 times... They get it. Democrats don’t. They talked a lot about ‘fighting’ —fighting insurance companies and big business and Wall Street and polluters. But will they fight the real enemy—Islamic terrorists?... These contrasting performances in New Hampshire should crystallize in voters’ minds more than any other recent example how one party understands the titanic challenge we face from radical Islam, while the other decidedly does not.” —Investor’s Business Daily

  “[Mike] Huckabee is a ‘compassionate conservative’ only in the sense that calling him a conservative is being compassionate. Huckabee opposes school choice, earning him the coveted endorsement of the National Education Association of New Hampshire, which is like the sheriff being endorsed by the local whorehouse. Huckabee has said illegal immigration gives Americans a chance to make up for slavery. I thought letting O.J. walk for murdering two people was payback for slavery.” —Ann Coulter 

“The thought of having to choose between Huckabee and Hillary (or whomever the Left tosses up) come November 2008 is about as appealing to me as the option of watching Rosie O’Donnell river dance naked at 11:00 PM verses watching Rosie O’Donnell river dance naked at 11:15 PM.” —Doug Giles

“An already perplexing Iowa race became even more impenetrable today as former Sen. John Edwards blasted Sen. Barack Obama for criticizing Sen. Hillary Clinton’s claim that Sen. Obama had criticized Sen. Edwards... The former North Carolina senator said that the Illinois senator’s criticism of the New York senator for claiming that the Illinois senator had criticized the North Carolina senator was ‘an attempt to confuse the voters.’ Mr. Edwards’ comments set off a new round of charges, countercharges, and counter-countercharges between the three Democratic rivals, with Sen. Obama lashing out at Sen. Clinton for supporting Mr. Edwards’ criticism of Sen. Obama’s criticism of Sen. Clinton.” —Andy Borowitz

“It seems to me that if the Democrats were really smart, they’d... run the man who best represents everything the left-wingers stand for... The fellow I have in mind is none other than Santa Claus. Old Saint Nick goes around bestowing gifts on those who haven’t worked for them, just like the Democrats, who do the same for the chronically unemployed and illegal aliens. And just as the little people do all the heavy lifting for Santa, the Democrats have their own set of elves; namely the middle-class taxpayers. Furthermore, Santa is obviously a liberal. Even though he, himself, only works one day a year, he thinks he’s entitled to decide who’s naughty and who’s nice.” —Burt Prelutsky

If any one ever asked for my question to ask the candidates it would be something like this ..


 This nation was founded on the principles of freedom.That we had certain rights given to us by God and it is the governments job to preserve those freedoms I think that we have stayed very for from what our founders envisioned.
  What would  you president do to reverse our slide towards socialism that has the government interfering with almost all aspects of out lives ,??

 Some of us are getting  sick of all these politicians and people who think the government has to wipe our hind ends .. Things like buying a toilet that uses only a few gallons of water and healthcare insurance and retirement social insecurity and many other things ,I think our founders would be appalled at the country we are now .

 

        

The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivalry of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise.” —Mark Twain

“The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivalry of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise.” —Mark
Twain
 
The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.” —George Washington

“For us to ignore by inaction the slaughter of American civilians and American soldiers, whether in nightclubs or airline terminals, is simply not in the American tradition... Self-defense is not only our right, it is our duty.” —Ronald Reagan

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” —Edmund Burke

 

“At the birth of our nation our uniquely American society had a very clear grasp of the concept of good and evil, of bad and good, of what was right and what was wrong. Individuals and organizations who transgressed the boundaries of the evil, the bad or the wrong were expected to pay a price for their misdeeds. Today, through the employment of the perverted and contorted logic of moral relativism anything can be rationalized and anyone—even if they are the purveyors of evil—can be a victim. All that our ‘enlightened’ society expects from those who commit even the most monstrous of societal transgressions is ‘an apology.’ The sad part about this reality is that because our society has become morally relativistic there is no threshold for how sincere that apology has to be.” —Frank Salvato

  The people that fought in the Revolutionary War some of who  later would become known as our Founding Fathers wanted to live their lives free from government intrusion. We can get many of their views from the Declaration of Indepedence  and constitution. In the later years of the 1700's as they gathered to debate and form our constitution there were 2 different kinds of thought.
  Those who supported  Natural law  and those who supported Positivism.

 Natural law  supporters where those who believes that man received their rights from God and it was the governments responsibility to protect those rights for its citizens .

 Positivism supporters are those who believe that the government gives us our rights .

As the constitution was finished I would say that those who believed in Natural law won most of the argument but there were cetain phrases in the constitution that the positivists have used to bring us to where we are now which is a huge federal government that really knows no boundries to its powers in future post I hope to examine how we got from the states  creating a federal government to a federal government that takes any power it wants.

 Ron Reagan said " We are a nation that has a government not the othee ways around .' That might have been true in 1790 and what was intended but we are not there now. 

 

“If the next century does not find us a great nation... it will be because those who represent the... morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.” —James Garfield

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” —John F. Kennedy

“Liberty is not to be found in any form of government; she is in the heart of the free man; he bears her with him everywhere.” —Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Patriotism is easy to understand. It means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.” —Calvin Coolidge

“There is something about a Republican that you can only stand him just so long; and on the other hand, there is something about a Democrat that you can’t stand him quite that long.” —Will Rogers

 

 Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, and measure in which the lives and liberties of millions yet unborn are intimately interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of a revolution the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations.” —John Adams

“Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth... In recent years, however, I’ve come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history. Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government. Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July.” —Ronald Reagan

“In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man—these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We cannot continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth and their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress.” —Calvin Coolidge

 

 http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010210

GOOD ARTICLE BY Peggy Noonan on immigration