Laura's Blog

 www.fergyfamforum.blogspot.com

Laura Ferguson, Curt's wife, blogs over at www.fergyfamforum.blogspot.com.  She posts regularly (rarely will a week go by without several new posts) on a variety of topics: faith, family, home decorating, travel, photography, her own poetry, recipes, inspirational links and quotes, and more.  We invite you to get better acquainted with our family and our values by visiting her blog.

 

 

Quotes and Sayings

 

“Nothing is easier than spending public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is over­whelming to bestow it on somebody.” --President Calvin Coolidge

 

“[I]f you tax people who work, and you pay people who don’t work, don’t be surprised if you find a lot of people not working. I have never heard of a poor person spending himself or herself to prosperity. It doesn’t work.” econo­mist Arthur Laffer

                                                            

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." Samuel Adams

 

"There is just one condition on which men can secure employment and a living, nourishing, profitable wage, for whatever they contribute to the enterprise, be it labor or capital, and that condition is that some one make a profit by it. ... It cannot be done by law, it cannot be done by public ownership, it cannot be done by socialism. When you deny the right to a profit you deny the right of a reward for thrift and industry." --President Calvin Coolidge

 

“As long as the focus is comparative and the answer is relative, we will never have enough.” Scott Farnsworth

 

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” Melody Beatty

 

“It’s the Democrats whose position is that the only prob­lem in Washington, D.C., is the peasants aren’t sending enough cash in for the king to spend.” - Grover Norquist

 

“[N]o matter how tough things are right now, we still give thanks for that most American of blessings, the chance to determine our own destiny. The problems we face didn’t develop overnight, and we won’t solve them overnight.” --Barack Obama, while tirelessly working to deprive more Americans of freedom to determine their own destiny!

 

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” - Adam Smith

 

“[T]hose who are willing to surrender their freedom for security have always demanded that if they give up their full freedom it should also be taken from those not pre­pared to do so.” --economist Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992)

 

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."  Melody Beattie

 

“A man is never so on trial as in the moment of excessive good fortune.”

-Lew Wallace, from ‘Ben Hur’

 

"It's always easy to spend other people's money, and especially easy to spend other people's money to the benefit of one's friends." Michael Sullivan

 

"What you leave in your children is more important than what you leave for them." - Jon and Eileen Gallo

 

"It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you." - Will Rogers

 

"This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth. Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than its neighbors.” - novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

 

“Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil." - novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

 

“There's always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little - and it's always somebody else.” - Cullen Hightower

 

“We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex--but Congress can.” - Cullen Hightower

 

“Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.” Ambrose Bierce

 

“To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.” Will Durant

 

“Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.” Charles de Gaulle

 

 “Virtually everything is under federal control nowadays except the federal budget.” Herman E. Tal­madge

 

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.” - Benjamin Franklin

 

"Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things." Blaise Pascal

 

“Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government.  It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man… Common interest (has) a greater influence than the laws of government." - Thomas Paine

 

"Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of 'emergency.' It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And 'emergency' became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains." --President Herbert Hoover

 

"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." - French Algerian author Albert Camus (1913-1960)

 

“It would be absurd to say that all men who exercise power are bad men.  But I think you could say that all men who seek power are very dangerous men and require very careful watching.”  Malcolm Muggeridge

 

“Without the distraction of computers, televisions, phones and cars the most extraordinary thing happened; we grew to know one another.” Kelly Monroe Kullberg (Finding God Beyond Harvard)

 

"L.A. is considering a ban on both plastic AND paper grocery bags. Fine. If I ever go shopping in L.A., my bags will be made from the fur of animals I killed myself." --former Senator Fred Thompson

 

"[W]ithout an efficient societal conveyor belt to move you on, [adolescence] appears to be the default setting of huge swathes of humanity."  - Mark Steyn

 

"English experience indicates that when two political parties agree about something, it is generally wrong." - G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

 

"[B]y thinking like bureaucrats instead of businessmen, Uncle Sam has managed to bankrupt an enterprise [the U.S. Postal Service] that enjoys a virtual monopoly. Only the government could do that."  Patriot Post, 9/10/11

 

“The Church which is entrusted with the truth is a body of sinful men and women who falsely identify their grasp of truth with the truth itself.” – Lesslie Newbigin

 

"I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom." - President Calvin Coolidge

 

"Don't be distracted from the non-negotiable." Ferguson family motto

Summer 2011 headline:  "Narcissists Rise to the Top Because People Mistake Their Confidence and Authority for Leadership Qualities“ - Daily Mail (London)

 “For who God is in our minds must always be shattered by who God is.” - Jill Carattini

"When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice." - Saul Bellow

 

“There is no fear that a modern king will attempt to override the constitution.  It is more likely that he will ignore the constitution and work behind it's back.”  - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

"People who say they want a government program because 'I don't want to be a burden to my children' apparently think it is all right to be a burden to other people's children."  - Thomas Sowell

"A socialist is somebody who doesn't have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody." - George Bernard Shaw

“Let 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.” - Ronald Reagan

“[Liberals] hate standards for behavior, labeling all rebuke of bad behavior as being intolerant and judgmental.  And yet, they believe without divine influence, man is capable of someday achieving universal peace.  Totally absurd.” - Lloyd Marcus

"[I]f we are to die to self and live to God... ‘so long as our idea of surrender is limited to the renouncing of unlawful things, we have never grasped it's true meaning[.]’” - Elizabeth Elliot, in part quoting Lilias Trotter

“There is good news from Washington today.  The Congress is deadlocked and can’t act.”   -  Will Rogers

“Learn to say no.  It will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.”  Charles Spurgeon

“The sane among us recognize that in a free society, income is neither taken nor distributed; for the most part, it is earned. Income is earned by pleasing one's fellow man. The greater one's ability to please his fellow man, the greater is his claim on what his fellow man produces.”  Walter Williams, economist

"The question isn't at what age I want to retire, it's at what income."  George Foreman

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."  G.K. Chesterton

“Often it isn't that we can't see the solution; it's that we can't see the problem.” G.K. Chesterton, from Father Brown Mysteries

“If riches increase, do not set your heart upon them”  (Psa 62:10b)

“Rules without relationship breed rebellion.” - Josh McDowell

“Proclaim the Gospel: use words if necessary.” - St. Francis

“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die – for the harder I work, the more I live.” - George Bernard Shaw

“There are two ways to get enough.  One is to continue to accumulate more and more.  The other is to desire less.” - unknown

"It was self-serving politicians who convinced recent generations of Americans that we could all stand in a circle with our hands in each other's pockets and somehow get rich." -  Paul Harvey

“What entitlements do, and what the transformation of entitlements into rights does, is create a citizenry that increasingly lacks the most important character trait -- gratitude. …Grateful people are happier, and grateful people are more morally decent. …But the welfare state undoes that. One does not express thanks for a right. So, instead of 'thank you,' the citizen of the welfare state is taught to say, 'What more can I get?’” - Dennis Prager

 “When a strong man armed keepeth his goods, his goods are in peace.”  Blaise Pascal

"As the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues. Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income, we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our budget into balance." - John F. Kennedy

 “As if anything more unfortunate could happen to a man ruled by his own fancies.”- Pliny

 

Observations on Life (from the Mind of Steven Wright)

• Borrow money from pessimists—they don't expect it back.
• Half the people you know are below average.
• A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
• If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
• OK, so what's the speed of dark?
• How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
• Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
• When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
• Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
• If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
• Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
• What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
• My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
• Why do psychics have to ask your name?
• A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

“A man who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool; avoid him.  A man who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a wise man; teach him." - Arabic Proverb (from David Brewer)

 “liberalism permits Western civilization to be reconciled to its dissolution”  - James Burnham

“To give you an illustration of how bureaucracy works … England in 1803 created a new civil service position.  It called for a man to stand on the cliffs of Dover with a spyglass and ring a bell if he saw Napoleon coming.  They didn’t eliminate that job until 1945.” – Ronald Reagan

 “It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. … those who torment us ‘for our own good’ will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” -  C.S. Lewis

“A tyranny sincerely exercised ‘for the good of’ its victims may be the most oppressive.” -  C.S. Lewis

 “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” ~Leo Tolstoy

“No generation can bequeath to its successor what it has not got.” C.S. Lewis

 

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over a member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant." - John Stuart Mill

 

“Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up." - G. K. Chesterton

 

"The first law of the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth... There shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice."  – Cicero

 

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” - Cicero

 

It is certain the world never, either before or since, has seen anything equal to the writings of the New Testament.  Never was the love of God and the dignity to which he has raised the human nature, so clearly shown and demonstrated;  never were motives so Divine and powerful purposed to induce us to the practice of all virtue and goodness.  In short, there we find whatever ennobles and adorns the mind; whatever gives solid peace and joy; whatever renders us the most excellent and happy creatures; taught, recommended, and enforced by light and authority derived from the only fountain of truth and of all good.  - Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)

 

Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, Cease from your consideration of it.  When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings, Like an eagle that flies toward the heavens. - Solomon  (Pro 23:4-5 NAS)

 

Do not say, "Why is it that the former days were better than these?" For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this.  Wisdom along with an inheritance is good And an advantage to those who see the sun.  For wisdom is protection just as money is protection. But the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the lives of its possessors. - Solomon  (Ecc 7:10-12 NAS)

 

Letting armies of government employees retire in their fifties, to live for decades on pensions larger than they were making when they were working, costs a lot more than keeping the poor from starving in the streets.   - Thomas Sowell

 

“Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.” - George MacDonald

 

“Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.” – Benjamin Franklin

 

"Silver and gold are not gifts, but only excuses for gifts.  The only true gifts are gifts of self."  Anonymous

 

"Ignorance is voluntary misfortune." -Nicholas Lang

 [Responding to the Wikileaks public disclosure of classified documents] "If we want to keep our nation's secrets 'SECRET,' store them where President Obama stores his college transcripts and birth certificate." Mike Huckabee

Keep a good sense of humor:

I saw a Democrat fall into the lake this morning and being a responsible citizen, I informed the Emergency Services.  It's 6:00 PM and they still haven't responded! Now I'm starting to think I've wasted a stamp......

 

“One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up."   -- Arthur Koestler

"The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would ... assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it." --Adam Smith

"We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts.... Self-government means self-reliance." --President Calvin Coolidge (1873-1933)

“In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” -Al Rogers  

 “But it is the personal Author of the universe whose Spirit alone can set the human spirit free from its proclivity to self-inflation, self-doubt, self-absorption, and self-destruction, and free for its 'magnificent obsession'... to know the mind of God." - James E. Loder, The Logic of the Spirit 

“[T]he campaign finance bills that we have passed have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  I think the Constitution is wrong.” --Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA)

"The global warming scam…with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it…has corrupted so many scientists…[and is] the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist." Hal Lewis, in letter of resignation as President of the American Physical Society, of which he was a member for 67 years

If we will not allow them, our windows on the world will neither expand with discovery, correction, truth, or faith. ... Truth is often bigger than what we see. ...If we are willing to let God transform the world before our eyes, there will be windows further opened, dynamics that move us deeper into the divine presence, and signs of God's existence that change us completely. - Jill Carattini, RZIM

"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." --American writer Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)

 “The ... inescapable truth is government does not have all the answers. In too many instances, government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.” --Ronald Reagan

"One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived." --Italian statesman and political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

"The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase." --Russian writer Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi (1828-1910)

 “Chance favors only the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur

“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of igno­rance and the gospel of envy.” British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

“Those who have been intoxicated with power ... can never willingly abandon it.” British statesman Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

“The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.”  Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

“They have an engine called the press whereby the people are deceived.”  C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

“It would appear that Barack Hussein Obama's macro agenda for the U.S. economy is to break the back of capitalism and, in the ensuing crisis, use government intervention to replace it with a more refined socialist economic framework than the one currently in place.” Mark Alexander, Patriot Post, July 8, 2010

"All wisdom is plagiarism, only stupidity is original." Hugh Kerr

"A man may sink by such slow degrees that, long after he is a devil, he may go on being a good churchman or a good dissenter, and thinking himself a good Christian" - George MacDonald

"Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts." - C.S. Lewis

“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

"If a state, or nation, has laws it will not enforce for political reasons, it mocks both the law and politics, to say nothing of the cultural order." - Cal Thomas

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

"The greater the power the more dangerous the abuse." - Edmund Burke

“When the time comes to die, make sure that all you have to do is die!" - Jim Elliot

 

"[T]here is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man's face and another behind his back." --General Robert E. Lee (1807-1872)

 

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

 

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Albert Einstein

 

"Error of Opinion may be tolerated where Reason is left free to combat it." - Thomas Jefferson

"We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed." Ronald Reagan

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.
Ronald Reagan

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.
Ronald Reagan

All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.
Ronald Reagan

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

Don't be afraid to see what you see.
Ronald Reagan

Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we've ever known.
Ronald Reagan

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.
Ronald Reagan

Facts are stubborn things.
Ronald Reagan

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.
Ronald Reagan

Government exists to protect us from each other.  Where government has gone beyond its limits  is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
Ronald Reagan

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
Ronald Reagan

Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver five minutes longer.
Ronald Reagan

How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
Ronald Reagan

I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.
Ronald Reagan

I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life.
Ronald Reagan

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.
Ronald Reagan

Man is not free unless government is limited.
Ronald Reagan

The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
Ronald Reagan

The taxpayer - that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.
Ronald Reagan

There are no easy answers' but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
Ronald Reagan

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world's strongest economy.
Ronald Reagan

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.
Ronald Reagan

We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule.
Ronald Reagan

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
Ronald Reagan

We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.
Ronald Reagan

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.
Ronald Reagan

 

"You pay me two things: money and respect.  If I don't get the later, I don't want the former...here's your money back in full, please find another attorney." Jim Seidl, estate planning attorney

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.
-John Adams

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. - G Gordon Liddy

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

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
-Douglas Casey (Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University)

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
-Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850) Author of “The Law”

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free!
-P.J. O’Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you!
-Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
-Mark Twain (1866)

Talk is cheap…except when Congress does it.
-Unknown

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-Mark Twain

There is no distinctly American criminal class … save Congress.
-Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-Edward Langley, Artist (1928 – 1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong
enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson

 

The child’s thought about Dad:

4 years: My Daddy can do anything!
7 years: My Dad knows a lot…a whole lot.
8 years: My father does not know quite everything.
12 years: Oh well, naturally Father does not know that either.
14 years: Oh, Father? He is hopelessly old-fashioned.
21 years: Oh, that man-he is out of date!
25 years: He knows a little bit about it, but not much.
30 years: I must find out what Dad thinks about it.
35 years: Before we decide, we will get Dad's idea first.
50 years: What would Dad have thought about that?
60 years: My Dad knew literally everything!
65 years: I wish I could talk it over with Dad once more.

 

“People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired." - Alexander Hamilton

“You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.” -  Henry Ford

“Optimism is essential to achievement. It is the foundation of courage and of true progress.” - Nicholas Murray Butler

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” - Mahatma Gandhi

“My mind is a garden. My thoughts are the seeds. My harvest will be either flowers or weeds.” - Mel Weldon

“Men willingly believe what they wish.” Julius Caesar

 

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.” – Thomas Paine

 

“[T]here are two immutable rules that govern federal programs: They will always cost more than lawmakers and presidents tell us they will, and once they're in place, they'll never go away.”  INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY, April 07, 2009

 

“Proper gun control is the most effective way to get your bullet to the correct destination.” - Champ Miller, Human Events

 

“My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit.  He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.” - Indira Gandhi

 

“Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.” - Johann von Goethe

 

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. – Ronald Reagan 

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. – Ronald Reagan

“The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”  Margaret Thatcher

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." --Thomas Jefferson

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.  THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Samuel Kerchevel, Jul. 12, 1816

No man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him.  THOMAS JEFFERSON, Notes on Virginia

Whenever people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government.  THOMAS JEFFERSON, quoted in The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.  THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Colonel Smith, Nov. 13, 1787

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, Jan. 30, 1787

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

The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. – Thomas Jefferson

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." --Thomas Jefferson

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." -- Thomas Jefferson

The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits. – Thomas Jefferson

 “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.” Thomas Jefferson  

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”  Thomas Jefferson  

“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” Thomas Jefferson

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the  government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”  Thomas Jefferson  

“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.” Thomas Jefferson  

“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.” Thomas Jefferson  

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood 
of patriots and tyrants.” Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson said in1802: "Banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on! the continent their fathers conquered".

“The world is too big for us. Too much is going on, too many crimes, too much violence and excitement. Try as you will, you get behind in the race in spite of yourself. It’s an incessant strain to keep pace...and still, you lose ground. Science empties its discoveries on you so fast that you stagger beneath them in hopeless bewilderment. The political world is news seen so rapidly you are out of breath trying to keep pace... Everything is high pressure. Human nature cannot endure much more.”  The Atlantic Monthly, June 16, 1833.

 

 

“New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget, because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government.”  Michael Boskin, professor of economics at Stanford University

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”  Thomas Jefferson

“There’s nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”  Peter Drucker

“The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among the bounties, donations and benefits.” Plutarch (Roman historian)

"Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it." --John Adams

“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

“To be trusted is a greater compliment that being loved.” – George MacDonald

"[T]here is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust." - James Madison

Milton Friedman:

"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." --Samuel Adams

"All socialism involves slavery.... That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labors under coercion to satisfy another's desires. The relation admits of many gradations. Oppressive taxation is a form of slavery of the individual to the community as a whole. The essential question is -- How much is he compelled to labor for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labor for his own benefit?" --Herbert Spencer

"Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people." --John F. Kennedy

 “Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants." --Alexander Hamilton

"It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise." ---Alexander Hamilton

“It was the Republican Party that demolished the shining city on the hill my father built. It was the Republican Party that was 100 percent responsible for the end of the Reagan Revolution...[T]he Republican Party abandoned the trail leading to that shining city on the hill to become itself a quasi-Left-wing organization which looks at the Democrats’ welfare programs and says ‘me too’.” —Michael Reagan

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower

“They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion -- that the state cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man." - William Graham Sumner

An argument fatal to the communist theory, is suggested by the fact, that a desire for property is one of the elements of our nature. - Herbert Spencer

Government is essentially immoral. - Herbert Spencer

We do not commonly see in a tax a diminution of freedom, and yet it clearly is one. - Herbert Spencer

“[A] wise and frugal government... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” —Thomas Jefferson

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." ---Herbert Spencer

"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

"Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change and can trace its consequences; a harvest reared not by themselves but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens." ---Federalist No. 62, likely James Madison

An elderly woman died last month. Having never married, she requested no male pallbearers. In her handwritten instructions for her memorial service, she wrote, 'They wouldn't take me out while I was alive, I don't want them to take me out when I'm dead.'

 

Law of Logical Argument: Any thing is possible if you don't know what you are talking about. (unknown)

"When liberals start acting like they're opposed to pre-marital sex and mothers having careers, you know McCain's vice presidential choice has knocked them back on their heels." -- Ann Coulter 

“But listening to [Obama] speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in the State Senate.”  Sarah Palin

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." -- Emma Goldman

"Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters." ---Samuel Adams

"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty." ---Thomas Jefferson

"The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth." ---Alexander Hamilton

In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned. Alexis de Tocqueville

In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it. Alexis de Tocqueville

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith. Alexis de Tocqueville

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults. Alexis de Tocqueville

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.  Alexis de Tocqueville

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
Alexis de Tocqueville

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

 

           THE LAWS OF ULTIMATE REALITY 

Law of Mechanical Repair 
After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to pee.

Law of Gravity 
Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

Law of Probability 
The probability of being seen is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

Law of Random Numbers 
If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

Law of the Alibi 
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.

Variation Law 
If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (works every time).

Law of the Bath 
When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

Law of Close Encounters 
The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

Law of the Result 
When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

Law of the Result (corollary) 
When you try to prove to someone that a machine will work, it won’t.

Law of Biomechanics 
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Law of the Theater 
At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

The Starbucks Law 
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Murphy's Law of Lockers 
If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

Law of Logical Argument 
Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

White's Law of Physical Appearance 
If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

Oliver's Law of Public Speaking 
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Wilson's Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy 
As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

Doctors' Law 
If you don't feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you'll feel better. Don't make an appointment and you'll stay sick.

“Time exists so everything does not have to happen at once” Jim Horan

John Adams was critiquing a book that held that the French Revolution proved  that a “simple” government is the best type of government.  In one of his many comments in the margins of that book, Adams wrote:  “The clock with its wheels removed is simple.  But it will not tell the time of day.”

"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

“The Biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”--Thomas Merton

"Survey: Millionaires More Pessimistic on Economy Than the Affluent" --Atlanta Business Chronicle headline

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

“Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.” -- Judge Learned Hand

"Stories make everything we work with more valuable, including--or more accurately, especially--the people we serve."  -Scott Farnsworth

"If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." Thomas Edison

“People work harder and figure out solutions better when their own money is at stake.” John Lott, research scientist at the University of Maryland

"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

"I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic." --James Madison

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse." --John Stuart Mill

“If you were there to personally give the inheritance…what would you say?”  “What do you want this inheritance to accomplish?” -- William L. Geasey

“Don’t convince him . . . help him discover.” --Thomas E. Hitchcock

"We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst." --C.S. Lewis

"Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one less scoundrel in the world." --Thomas Carlyle

"The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians." --Benjamin Disraeli

"Author Stephen R. Covey writes about the impossibility of "talking our way out of a problem we have behaved ourselves into."  Similarly, when it comes to leaving a legacy, we can't expect to bequeath something we do not have, nor can we pass on values and virtues we have not practiced.  Our legacies are inseparably connected with the way we have treat people day by day.  "Way of being" trumps "spin" every time.  We can't leave it if we don't live it.   --Scott Farnsworth

"[I]f industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out." --James Madison

 

“The money brings power to the legacy, and the legacy brings power to the money.”  -- Scott Farnsworth

i.e. The financial wealth empowers the wisdom, and the wisdom empowers the financial wealth.

The only way to make a lasting impact with your financial wealth is to create, train or find people who share your values, and when you are not able to control your own money, give it to them to do with it what you would if you were still able, living. 

(Curt’s take on Scott’s quote)

"Amplification is the vice of modern oratory." ---Thomas Jefferson

"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men." --Samuel Adams

"[A] wise and frugal government... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." --Thomas Jefferson

"[W]hen 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..." --Thomas Jefferson

"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good..." --James Madison

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason. Let us be like the man of the frontier and always reveal with utmost honesty our real reasons for all that we do." --J.P. Morgan

"He that is warm for truth, and fearless in its defense, performs one of the duties of a good man; he strengthens his own conviction, and guards others from delusion; but steadiness of belief, and boldness of profession, are yet only part of the form of godliness." --Samuel Johnson

"A little integrity is better than any career." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nonsense is nonsense whether it rhymes or not, just as bad half-pennies are good for nothing whether they jingle or lie quiet." --Charles Spurgeon

"The intent of the Founding Fathers was to have an armed population that would ensure the 'security of a free state.' The armed population would be able to defend itself from abuses of a tyrannical government or foreign invaders, and would have the means of self-defense against the criminal element." --Charles Bloomer

"In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution." --Alexander Hamilton

"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

"Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects". Will Rogers

"Senator Hillary Clinton's Christmas commercial, showing various government programs as presents under a Christmas tree, was a classic example of calculated confusion in politics.  Anyone who believes that the government can give the country presents has fallen for the oldest political illusion of all---the illusion of something for nothing. Santa Claus may turn out to be the real front-runner in the primaries, judging by the way candidates are vying with one another to give away government goodies to the voters. Santa Claus is bipartisan. The Bush administration [unveiled] its plan to rescue people who gambled and lost in the housing markets when the bubble burst. We now have a bipartisan tradition of the government stepping in to rescue people who engaged in risky behavior---whether by locating in the known paths of hurricanes in Florida or in areas repeatedly hit by wildfires over the years in California or by doing things that increase the probability of catching AIDS. Why not also rescue people who gambled away their life's savings in Las Vegas? That would at least be consistent. Apparently the only people who are supposed to be responsible are the taxpayers---and they are increasingly made responsible for other people's irresponsibility." ---Thomas Sowell

“If the government would ever get it together and provide universal health care, I could ski where I want to again.”  Unknown Companion on JHMR ski lift, after explaining that since she did not have health insurance and can’t afford a broken arm or blown-out knee, she has to be careful where she skis.

"Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be..." ---John Adams

“If ‘at the end of our lives all that is left of us is our stories,’ what then becomes of us if those stories have not been shared and safeguarded?”  -- Scott Farnsworth, quoting Rick Stone

 

	"All you have to do is decide what to do with the time given to you." - The Lord of The Rings, Film 1978
	"It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required." - Sir Winston Churchill

 

	"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." - Matthew 7:12

 

"I believe that every person leaves some kind of legacy.  For some it's positive.  For some it's negative.  But here's what I know: we have a choice about what legacy we will leave, and we must work and be intentional to leave the legacy we want."  John C. Maxwell, Failing Forward

Eagles may soar but Weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. - Hawg Haggen

"Most men occasionally stumble over the truth, but pick themselves up and continue as if nothing had happened." Winston Churchill

"Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work". Karl Kraus (1874-1936)         

"America will last until the populace discovers that it can vote for itself largesse out of the public treasury." Alexis de Tocqueville

It cannot be repeated too often that nothing is more fertile in prodigies than the art of being free; but there is nothing more arduous than the apprenticeship of liberty. It is not so with despotism: despotism often promises to make amends for a thousand previous ills; it supports the right, it protects the oppressed, and it maintains public order. The nation is lulled by the temporary prosperity that it produces, until it is roused to a sense of its misery. Liberty, on the contrary, is generally established with difficulty in the midst of storms; it is perfected by civil discord; and its benefits cannot be appreciated until it is already old.” Alexis de Tocqueville

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."   Winston Churchill:

"Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values."  – Joshua Liebman

"Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing." ---John Stuart Mill

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." ---John Adams

 

"Nothing is more essential... than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable character." ---Samuel Adams

"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States." ---Noah Webster

"The gun has been called the great equalizer, meaning that a small person with a gun is equal to a large person, but it is a great equalizer in another way, too. It insures that the people are the equal of their government whenever that government forgets that it is servant and not master of the governed. When the British forgot that they got a revolution. And, as a result, we Americans got a Constitution; a Constitution that, as those who wrote it were determined, would keep men free. If we give up part of that Constitution we give up part of our freedom and increase the chance that we will lose it all. I am not ready to take that risk. I believe that the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms must not be infringed if liberty in America is to survive." ---Ronald Reagan

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

"A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." ---John Adams

"A man slandered is doubly injured---first by him who utters the calumny, and then by him who believes it." ---Herodotus

"You should punish in the same manner those who commit crimes with those who accuse falsely." ---Thucydides

"[S]ilence supports the accuser's charge?" ---Sophocles

"You should not honor men more than truth." ---Plato

"Every day you meet a delegation going to some convention to try and change the way of somebody else's life." ---Will Rogers

"Power as an end in itself---power because it's neat and makes people want to be around you and give you money and beg favors of you---is the great temptation, the overpowering seducer of good men and good women." ---William Murchison

 

"Our problems are both acute and chronic, yet all we hear from those in positions of leadership are the same tired proposals for more government tinkering, more meddling and more control---all of which led us to this state in the first place... We must have the clarity of vision to see the difference between what is essential and what is merely desirable, and then the courage to bring our government back under control and make it acceptable to the people." ---Ronald Reagan

 

"If you got something for nothing,  someone got nothing for something."

"Some people are easily entertained.  All you have to do is sit and listen to them."

"Faith is what makes you feel the comfort of the hearth while you're chopping the wood."

"The goal in a good marriage is not to think alike, but to think together."

 

"He's a very forthright person.  He's right about a fourth of the time."

"When you lose yourself in the service of others, you find the real you."

"There are dozens of plans for success, but none of them work unless you do."

"The world is full of two kinds of people; the givers and the takers.
The takers eat well - but the givers sleep well."

"Be thankful for your problems; if they were less difficult, someone with less ability would have them."

God left the world unfinished -- the pictures unpainted, the songs unsung, and the problems unsolved -- that man might know the joys of creation. -- Thomas S. Monson

 

 

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."    Thomas Jefferson

 

REFRESHER COURSE

 

 1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

 2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.

 3. Colt: The original point and click interface.

 4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.

 5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?

 6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.

 7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.

 8. If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.

 9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

10. The United States Constitution ©1791. All Rights Reserved.

11. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?

12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.

13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.

14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.

15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.

16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.

17. 911: Government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.

18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.

19. Criminals love gun control; it makes their jobs safer.

20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.

21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.

22. You have only the rights you are willing to fight for.

23. Enforce the gun control laws we ALREADY have; don't make more.

24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.

25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.