Dakota Beacon

Midterm election results call for some pithy quotes from known folks. These bits of wisdom bear reflecting upon in America’s post-election clime. They offer wisdom gleaned from decades of observation.

            “It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” -- Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator.

            Insights from our Founding Fathers: “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 natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” – Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father.

            “That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.” -- 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 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, Union General, Civil War.

            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 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, Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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

The Motley Fool financial commentator Robert Brokamp observes, “No matter how the political puzzle pieces are arranged, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and investors always end up as long-term beneficiaries.”

            “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…[T]he more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves.” -- 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, Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Two from Milton Friedman, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1976. “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.” And then, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.”

Here are some other views of government by other 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.

            “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.” -- Justice 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.

            Mark Twain on political reporting. “So, I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it, but I couldn’t find honest employment.”

Finally, the two kings of gentle chutzpa. First, Senator John Kennedy, Louisiana: “Sometimes the majority just means all the fools are on the same side.” And then, “I would remind you the lesser of two socialists is still a socialist.”

Second, Thomas Sowell, economist (studied under Milton Friedman): “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” And then, “If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago, and a racist today.”

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