Freedom is Not for the Timid - Twelve Principles of Liberty

[Recumbent ReCycler]

I copied this with permission from the author.

Freedom is Not for the Timid
Twelve Principles of Liberty


Rebecca  O?Dell  Townsend
Copyright 2006


Principle #1.  The only legitimate function of Government is to protect its citizens? God-given unalienable rights.

?It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.? - -Thomas Jefferson.

?We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all mean are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ... 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 ...? - - Declaration of Independence, 1776.

Principle #2.  Government is not compassion or reason.  It is force and coercion.  Government always oppresses those who allow themselves to be oppressed.

"If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions."    Thomas Jefferson 1787.

?Government is not reason, and it is not eloquence; it is force!  Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master: never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.?  -- George Washington.

?Man is not free unless government is limited.?  -- Ronald Reagan.

?I own I am not a friend of a very energetic government.  It is always oppressive.? - - Thomas Jefferson.

Principle #3.  God put a price tag on Liberty.  Freedom is not entrusted to the weak or the timid.  It requires courage and bravery.

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."    Dwight D. Eisenhower, First Inaugural Address, 1953.

?God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.?  - -Daniel Webster, 1834.

?These are the times that try men?s souls...Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph...What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly...Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated...? - -Thomas Paine.

"Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and lost it, have never known it again."    Ronald Reagan.

"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one!"    Alexander Hamilton.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."    Benjamin Franklin, 1759.

Principle #4.  Freedom Requires Vigilance.

?The price of Freedom is eternal vigilance.? -- Thomas Jefferson.

"No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation."    General Douglas MacArthur.

"But you must remember, my fellow citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.  It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government."    Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, 1837.



Principle #5.  Freedom Requires Resistance and Rebellion.

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."    John Bradshaw.

"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest.  The laws of necessity, of self  preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.  To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."   Thomas Jefferson, 1810.

"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; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."    Samuel Adams.

"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many 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."    Frederick Douglass.

"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."    Thomas Jefferson, 1787.

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to always be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all."    Thomas Jefferson.

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."  Thomas Jefferson, 1819.

"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 both.  The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."    Frederick Douglass.

Principle #6.  Freedom Requires an Armed Citizenry.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms."    Thomas Jefferson, 1787.

"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, 1788.

?Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.? -- Thomas Jefferson.

?No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms ... .? -Thomas Jefferson.

?The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; ... Wherever standing armies are kept, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.?  - Blackstone?s Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1768.
 
Principle #7.  Freedom Requires an Educated Citizenry.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free ... it expects what never was and never will be."    Thomas Jefferson.

"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both."    James Madison.

?The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.?    John F. Kennedy, 1963.

?The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain sovereign control over the government.?  Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

"Do we really think that a government dominated education is going to produce citizens capable of dominating their government, as the education of a truly vigilant self governing people requires?"    Alan Keyes.

Principle #8.  Freedom Requires a Citizenry Zealous and Jealous of Each Others? Rights.
 
"Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence.  It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power.... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."   Thomas Jefferson, 1799.


"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."   Thomas Jefferson 1803.

"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.

Principle # 9.  Liberty Requires Citizens Who Are Distrustful of Government.

"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."   Thomas Jefferson.

"...There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow.  ... Our destruction, should  it come at all, will be from another quarter.  From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger.  I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing."    Daniel Webster, 1837.

"All power in human hands is liable to be abused."    James Madison, 1825.

"There is danger from all men.  The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."    John Adams, 1772.


Principle #10.  Liberty Requires Sacrifice.  Liberty Requires Accepting Imperfection and Inconvenience.   Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.

"The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes."    Thomas Paine.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." ? Thomas Jefferson, 1791.

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."      William Pitt, 1783.
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."   Dwight D. Eisenhower.

"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.

"In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security.  They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all    security, comfort, and freedom.  When ... the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free."    Sir Edward Gibbon (1737 1794).

?You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right.  There is only an up or down: up to man?s age-old dream of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.  Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path.  Plutarch warned, ?The real destroyer of liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.?? - - Ronald Reagan, 1964.
 

Principle #11.  Liberty Requires Citizens who Protect their Property.

?Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.?  - John Adams.

"I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away."    Thomas Jefferson 1787.

"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.  Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected.  No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions."     James Madison, 1792.

"To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association  the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."    Thomas Jefferson, 1816.

"Now what liberty can there be where property is taken without consent??"    Samuel Adams, leader of the Boston Tea Party.

?In the general course of human nature, a power over man's substance amounts to a power over his will.?    Alexander Hamilton.

"The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management."    Thomas Jefferson, 1816.



"The moment the idea is admitted into society that Property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."    John Adams.

"Whenever the 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.

Principle #12.  Freedom Requires A Moral People Who Do Not Require Government to Control Them and Who Will Not Tolerate Immoral Leaders. 

?We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.? - - James Madison.

?Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.  He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.? - - Samuel Adams.

?Man must choose to be governed by God, or condemn themselves to be ruled by tyrants.? - - William Penn.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin.



 




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[mvpel]

?These are the times that try men?s souls...Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph...What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly...Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated...? - -Thomas Paine.