"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect
liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial."
-- Justice Louis Brandeis

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later."
-~ Benjamin Franklin

"It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We
are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen
to the song of that siren till she transforms us into
beasts... For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost,
I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and
to provide for it."
-- Patrick Henry

"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a
little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong --
is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth,
then all Americans are in peril."
-- Harry S. Truman

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president,
or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."
-- Theodore Roosevelt

"The Greatest Enemy Of Knowledge Is Not Ignorance...
...It Is The Illusion Of Knowledge"
-- Stephen Hawking

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."
-- Mark Twain

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
-- Henry David Thoreau

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when
everything the American public believes is false."
-- William Casey, CIA Director (first staff meeting, 1981)

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good
conscience to remain silent"
-- Thomas Jefferson

"When the people fear their government, there is Tyranny;
when the government fears the people, there is Liberty."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"If a Nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of
civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it
is the responsibility of every American to be informed."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered;
the point is to discover them."
-- Galileo Galilei

"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find
it within himself." Galileo Galilei

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
-- George Santayana

"Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some
monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up
if we did not blindly rally behind it."
-- General Douglas MacArthur

"Our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred
in...war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda
of fear."
-– General Douglas MacArthur

"Find out just what the 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 with both. The limits
of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they
oppress."
-- Frederic Douglass, civil rights activist, Aug. 4, 1857

"The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without
formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to
deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree
odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government
whether Nazi or Communist."
-- Winston Churchill

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing
the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that
is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until
it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates
a country where everyone lives in fear."
-- Harry S Truman

"Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is
inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle."
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

"It does not require a majority to prevail but rather an irate,
tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."
-- Samuel Adams

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall
possess the highest seats in government, our country will
stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
-- Samuel Adams

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and
judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many,
and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may
justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
-- James Madison, Federalist Papers #47




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

"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever
he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow
him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it
necessary for such a purpose — and you allow him to make war
at pleasure."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"The World is not dangerous because of those who do harm but
because of those who look at it without doing anything."
-- Albert Einstein

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of
truth."
-- Albert Einstein

"We the People are the rightful masters of both congress and
the courts -- not to overthrow the Constitution, but to
overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted
with their own government"
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of
government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by
slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Bill for the More General diffusion of
Knowledge (1778)

"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

"Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting
wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always
lead to the other."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency to render
the head too large for the body. A standing military force
with an overgrown executive will not long be safe companions
to liberty."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed
and disinformed by their government. This is tragic but our
media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just beyond
telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to
know."
-- Gore Vidal

"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of
the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has
ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all
objectivity - much less dissent."
-- Gore Vidal

"In politics, nothing happens by accident, if it happens,
you can be sure we planned it that way".
-- Franklin Roosevelt

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest."
-– Thomas Jefferson

"For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may
lead, nor to tolerate error so long as reason is free to
combat it."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of
every American, it is that we should have nothing to do
with conquest."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations —
entangling alliances with none."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances
with any portion of the foreign world."
-- George Washington

"There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who
is striking at the root."
-- Henry David Thoreau

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is
also what it takes to sit down and listen.
-- Sir Winston Churchill

"Terrorism \Ter"ror*ism\, n.
The act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; a mode
of government by terror or intimidation.
-- Thomas Jefferson - Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives
people harder than a fear of sudden death."
-- Adolpf Hitler

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor
slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he
can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?
Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia,
nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is
understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country
who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to
drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is
tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the
peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to
danger. It works the same in any country."
-- Hermann Goering, Hitler's #2 man

"The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out
acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their
personal security is threatened".
-- Josef Stalin

"So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East,
with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is
still where the prize ultimately lies."
-- Richard Cheney - Chief Executive Of Halliburton

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip
the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is
indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just
as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached
a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has
closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of
the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and
blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto
the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I
have done. And I am Caesar."
-- Julius Caesar

"If the war on terror is real then the first thing that would
have happened within a matter of weeks after 9/11 would have
been we'd have closed the borders off. You have no national
security if your borders are not secure."
-- Col. Ronald D. Ray, former Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense under the Reagan Admin.

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to
restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to
restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our
lives and interests."
-- Patrick Henry

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of
confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by
the chains of the Constitution."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"An informed citizenry is the only true repository of
the public will."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous
sea of Liberty."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their
own destruction."
-- James Baldwin

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight
you, then you win."
-- Mahatma Gandhi

"fascism - A system of government that exercises a
dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the
merging of state and business leadership, together with
belligerent nationalism."
-- The American Heritage Dictionary, 1983

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being
self-evident."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer

"Any Truth is better than make-believe. . . Rather than love,
than money, than fame, give me truth."
-- Henry David Thoreau

"Free and responsible government by popular consent just can't
exist without an informed public."
-- Bill Moyers

"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is."
-- Sir Winston Churchill

"There is what the Public knows and then there is the Truth."
-- netctr.com

"The penalty good men suffer for not getting involved in public
affairs is being ruled by evil men."
-- Plato

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is
that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
-- Plato

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
-- George Santayana (1863–1952), U.S. philosopher, poet.

"The worst forms of tyranny, or certainly the most successful
ones, are not those we rail against but those that so insinuate
themselves into the imagery of our consciousness, and the fabric
of our lives, as not to be perceived as tyranny."
-- Michael Parenti

"A tyrant's best ally has always been an apathetic populace.
Citizens of Germany learned that awful truth in 1939."
-- Doug Thompson

"What would you do if you knew all the things we knew,
would you stand up for truth or would you turn away too?"
-- Paris

"The exact contrary of what is generally believed
is often the truth."
-- Jean de la Bruyère

"During times of universal deceit, telling
the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell

"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be
untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently
twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.
Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an
indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later
a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a
battlefield."
-- George Orwell

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can
shield the people from the political, economic and/or military
consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for
the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the
truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension,
the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."
-- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels

"The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists
in leading him from error to truth."
-- St. Thomas Aquinas

"All just power is derived from the consent of the governed."
-- John Locke

"The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap
from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead."
-- William Lloyd Garrison

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
-- Howard Zinn

"To criticize one's country is to do it a service .... Criticism,
in short, is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism - a
higher form of patriotism, I believe, than the familiar rituals
and national adulation."
-- U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright

"To question your government is not unpatriotic --
to not question your government is unpatriotic."
-- Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.)

"A Patriot is merely a rebel at the start. In the beginning of
a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and
scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then
it costs nothing to be a patriot."
-- Mark Twain

"On the altar of God, I pledge undying hostility to any
government restrictions on the free minds of the people."
-- Thomas Jefferson - The favored quote at the highest point
in the Rotunda at the Jefferson Memorial.

"In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his
tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Who ever
would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing
the freeness of speech."
-- Benjamin Franklin

the problem with this generation though is that most of us are too ignorant to see/accept the truth. This generation of youth is too lazy and too self obsessed to know what's going on. I'm not speaking of all of us but the majority are more worried about the prices at hollister or hot topic than the enslavement of the people. Also the government has severely limited our chances of protest compared to the 60's. Granted we now have the internet to help get the injustices out there but we have been taught since birth to not believe the stuff written on the internet. I've said before that we need a counterculture for today but the problem is that any counterculture quickly turns into a cash crop for the corporations.

Originally posted by flyingwoody

I've said before that we need a counterculture for today but the problem is that any counterculture quickly turns into a cash crop for the corporations.

Jesus...nice first post !!!

I agree.
100%.

Hippies went hip. Goth went cloth. Punk went...
well, went...

FW, I salute you.

Regards,
Lex

Don't be too quick to write-off the internet. Sure, there's tons of twaddle out here and alot of outright lies, deception and hoaxes. But it does represent an unprecedented channel for distributing information to vast audiences in near real-time. It also provides a repository of information that allows people to find and learn where they may well not have had the time, patience or ability previously.

Look at the current situation in Myanmar. The ONLY thing keeping the government from visiting wholesale slaughter on the protesters is the knowledge that images and video are being leaked to the outside world. That may not ultimately stop the violence but it has given them pause.

We're at a pivotal point in U.S. history. We're teetering on the brink. We have a personal choice to just acquiesce or attempt to turn the tide. My friend Brad says it will come down to choosing the lesser of two evils --- just like every other election. Does it have to? Knowing that the entire cadre of Democrat and Republican candidates are bought-and-paid-for do we just pull the handle like we're flushing the whole country down the toilet? Everyone is too materialistic and lazy --- let's all just give up.

Bullcrap. We CAN do something and it takes hardly any effort at all. Educate yourself about the Constitution and what is being done RIGHT NOW to destroy it. Then tell someone else. At least then, when the whole thing is in the crapper, you can say you did something.



[edit on 25-9-2007 by jtma508]

I'm not saying that we should give up, im just saying that the majority of the youth today won't start a counterculture like we need.

I'm not so sure this requires a counter-culture or that it hinges on the youth. This issue has a very broad reach and carries with it very broad consequences. Certainly the younger generation --- being more plugged-in --- may be the tip of the spear, but it will require a broad-based upswell to break the current inertia across this country. Most peopl, I fear, have just resigned themselves. I think the powers-that-be are counting on that. But I sincerely believe that if enough people become aware we have a shot.