Dakota Beacon

For casual reading on long summer days, here are some pithy quotes from familiar folks. They recall old-school values aligned to the traditional way of thinking.

The following selection of axioms bears reconsideration in light of today’s cultural environment. Humorous or serious, they offer wisdom gleaned from experience. With a little effort, anyone can find similar aphorisms by noodling around the internet. Suggested sites include brainyquote.com, rightwingnews.com, and refseek.com to name a few.

Insights from our Founding Fathers include: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams, Founding Father.

“The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.” – John Adams, Founding Father.

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” – Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father.

“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence.” — George Washington, President.

Some men held a very realistic view of war. “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” — William T. Sherman, Civil War Union General.

For an intellectual, George Orwell got it right. “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

General Curtis LeMay, Chief of Staff, US Air Force put it rather starkly considering our contemporary sensibilities. “If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.”

“History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” — Ronald Reagan, President.

Conservatives hold some classic views on wealth and poverty. “The world’s biggest problem is the unequal distribution of capitalism. If there were capitalism everywhere, you wouldn’t have food shortages.” — Rush Limbaugh, Dr. of Democracy and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner.

“Millions of individuals making their own decisions in the marketplace will always allocate resources better than any centralized government planning process.” — Ronald Reagan, President.

“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. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.” -- Ben Franklin, Founding Father.

“Compassion is defined not by how many people are on the government dole but by how many people no longer need government assistance.” -- Rush Limbaugh, Dr. of Democracy and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner.

“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.” -- Milton Friedman, Economist.

Here are some additional views of government by some famous people. “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” -- Alexis de Tocqueville, French observer of Early America.

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” -- Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister.

“I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” -- William F. Buckley, American conservative writer, public intellectual, and political commentator.

“Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.” -- Will Rogers

“The constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.” -- William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court.

“Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.” -- Gerald Ford, President.

“That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.” -- Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father.

“I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.” --Ronald Reagan, President.

Mark Twain generated many homespun quips. “So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldn’t find honest employment.” And finally, “Familiarity breeds contempt; and children.”

Without a doubt, one of my all-time favorite comedians would be Groucho Marx. Here are a few of his witticisms. “My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one.” In conclusion, “In America you can go on the air and kid the politicians, and the politicians can go on the air and kid the people.”

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).