Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Election Day!

As you vote today, please remember these quotes from our founders:

There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.” — James Madison

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." - Thomas Jefferson

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression." - Thomas Jefferson

"The invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents." - James Madison

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers 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 everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." - Thomas Jefferson

"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." - James Madison

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." - John Marshall

2 comments:

Timothy W Higgins said...

Maggie,

Let me add a couple to an already formidable list that everyone should take the time not only to read, but to understand:

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
- Thomas Jefferson

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, it is the only thing that ever has.
– Margaret Mead

The brutal truth here is that if the expected 35% of registered voters participate today, and 51% constitutes a majority, that simple math tells us that 18% of those registered to vote will decide today's issues.

Jay Ott said...

The price we have to pay for money is sometimes liberty. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

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