Happy birthday, Thomas Jefferson!
Here's what the third president had to say about the right of secession and the threat of Hamiltonian mercantilism:
"The alternatives between which we are to choose [are fairly stated]: 1, licentious commerce and gambling speculations for a few, with eternal war for the many; or, 2, restricted commerce, peace and steady occupations for all. If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation with the first alternative to a continuance in union without it, I have no hesitation in saying 'let us separate.' I would rather the States should withdraw which are for unlimited commerce and war, and confederate with those alone which are for peace and agriculture."
Sounds like Mr. Jefferson was right about option 1, which gave us global outsourcing, corporate welfare, the military-industrial complex, and a war whose supporters admit has no end in sight.
Which is why we want to try option 2.
posted by Michael Tuggle @ Sunday, April 13, 2008
2 Comments
2 Comments:
When push comes to shove in politics at the most serious level, we see just how determined some of us can be in their lust for power.
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They are those who lead in ways many of us see as immoral; but, never the less, they are leaders.
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We are, at present, being led by a man that sees himself as in charge of world destiny. He seems to believe the ends justify the means..
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He makes me think of Robspiere, a leader, who once was in control of the Reign of Terror in France.
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Pinky
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p.s. I have trouble logging in.
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A certain Lady I know, who blogs here, http://www.badgermum.cumbeeclan.com/ , wrote this:
The Federalists Will Always Be With You
Posted on April 9, 2008.
The early American Federalists -- big defenders of corporations and privileges for the rich -- also used fear in much the way their great grandchildren did and do in the Cold War and the War on Terrorism. One Anti-Federalist of that early era, William Grayson of Virginia, satirized the Federalists thus:
"We are now told . . . that we shall have wars and rumours of wars, that every calamity is to attend to us, and that we shall be ruined and disunited forever, unless we adopt this constitution. Pennsylvania and Maryland are to fall upon us from the north, like the Goths and Vandals of old; . . . the Indians are to invade us with numerous armies on our rear . . . and the Carolinians, from the South, (mounted on alligators, I presume) are to come and destroy our cornfields, and eat up our little children! . . . These, sir, are the mighty dangers which await us if we reject -- dangers which are merely imaginary, and ludicrous in the extreme!" -- William Grayson of Virginia cited in Cecelia Kenyon, ed, The Antifederalists (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1966), 281, 282, all cited in Richard Grossman, "Anti-Federalists Speak: Property vs. Democracy in 1787"
So, back then, the Federalists frightened people into adopting the new, skewed constitution, and now the same sorts frighten us into setting aside habeas corpus.
(Snaggle-Tooth Jones)
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