The Founding Fathers Views on Tyranny

This video of Founding Father quotes over the subject of tyranny really shows how the American government and society has went wrong. Think about how many of these quotes can be applied to modern day America. It's really almost frightening how they warned us of the things that are occuring today.

Thomas Jefferson:

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

"Experience hath shown that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

George Washington:

"Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty."

"Guard against the impostures of intended patriotism"

James Madison:

"The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war"

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home"

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be under the guise of fighting a foreign enemy"

John Adams:

"Liberty, once lost, is lost forever"

Benjamin Franklin:

"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority"

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"

Thomas Paine:

"That government is best which governs least"

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government"

"'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world." - George Washington farewell speech

I always have a problem reading quotes about freedom and liberty by men who were slave holders.

I don't worship the founding fathers...I firmly believe they had their pocket book guiding them more than they had these "noble" ideas of liberty and freedom. It was good propaganda...and apparently it is still working today.

Afterall...George Washington did march the Army on a group of farmers that refused to pay a tax to HIS government...after just fighting a war about paying taxes to a different government

^ Hmm what id say to that is, Appreciate the Founding Fathers for what they did. Which was rebel against unfair taxes by the British.

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


That's a very respectful, patriotic attitude towards the men who wrote the Constitution and formed this county. Calling these quotes propaganda is one of the stupidest and most disrespectful things I've ever heard. Do you even know what propaganda is? And when you say "it's still working today", what are you even talking about? All of their warnings have been ignored, so really it's not working today at all.

While I agree that talking about freedom while owning slaves is the height of hypocrisy, the rest of your post is just garbage.

Not even just our founding fathers!


Eisenhowers dier warning about the military industrial complex in his farewell speech..

Our country basically stopped listening to its Elders and started listening to its Bankers...

The only problem with these obvious truths about our current state of affairs, is that to correct the problem, and to do what our forefathers have condoned, would be to take up arms and go to war against our current leaders;
wherever they may be, and 99.9% of Americans have become to afraid to lose what they have by following through with this..

Where it could really be turned around, would be with all our elected officials, but they would rather see the corruption continue..

Originally posted by truthinfact
^ Hmm what id say to that is, Appreciate the Founding Fathers for what they did. Which was rebel against unfair taxes by the British.

Then we should rebel against the US government for the same thing right?

Originally posted by mytheroy

Originally posted by truthinfact
^ Hmm what id say to that is, Appreciate the Founding Fathers for what they did. Which was rebel against unfair taxes by the British.

Then we should rebel against the US government for the same thing right?

You said it, not me.

Originally posted by alienreality
The only problem with these obvious truths about our current state of affairs, is that to correct the problem, and to do what our forefathers have condoned, would be to take up arms and go to war against our current leaders;
wherever they may be, and 99.9% of Americans have become to afraid to lose what they have by following through with this..

Where it could really be turned around, would be with all our elected officials, but they would rather see the corruption continue..

Can't get them to put their phones down long enough to pick up a weapon. hell they'll gt shot and text a SOS lol

reply to post by alienreality

The only problem with these obvious truths about our current state of affairs, is that to correct the problem, and to do what our forefathers have condoned, would be to take up arms and go to war against our current leaders;
wherever they may be, and 99.9% of Americans have become to afraid to lose what they have by following through with this..

Thomas Paine said it best:

"The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance"

reply to post by truthinfact


I've been saying the citizens need to rise up and put the government back in check! Just can't do it alone

Special men from a special time. And I generally don't hold men, and especially any group of men, in high esteem historically. Unlike others, I don't hold people from other eras to 21st century standards. Those men were great. Not a fan of Hamilton. Glad he wasn't included. He would have liked our current big government/elite dominated system.

George Washington basically turned down the chance to form an American dynasty. Not many leaders in the past would have done such a thing. Without him, the U.S. would never have existed. I know there are a lot of U.S. haters and bashers on ATS, but I think the world would be a much much darker place without its existence.

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


It's very refreshing to see an American who can cut through the crap and see the truth about the founding fathers of their country.

I've always found it bizarre and distasteful how the average American hero-worships these people.

What's even more nauseating is when people quote them on issues such as ''liberty'' and ''tyranny''; the irony is palpable.

Thomas Jefferson owned a slew of slaves, notoriously impregnated at least one of his slave-girls ( statutory rape ) and authored a bill advocating the nasal mutilation of anyone convicted of the ''crime'' of lesbianism.

Many of the other founding fathers, in addition to thinking that it was acceptable to ''own'' another human being as property, were implicit in the genocide of American Indians.

reply to post by Sherlock Holmes


Can't you guys just appreciate the damn quotes? Sure, they did some bad things, but no worse than what our politicians have been doing and endorsing for decades. At least they managed to inject some wisdom into history and tried to warn us of the things that most people are too stupid to even think about nowadays.

reply to post by TupacShakur


No, I can't appreciate any quotes pertaining to ''liberty'' or ''tyranny'' that were made by people who either owned slaves and supported genocide, or who tacitly approved of other people doing so. That's practically the dictionary definition of hypocrisy.

Without wishing to veer into Godwin's Law territory, Hitler made some highly agreeable comments when he was discussing more generic, less controversial social issues. However, Hitler was hardly one to practice what he preached, so his comments are now correctly viewed as not carrying too much weight.

Originally posted by TupacShakur
reply to post by Sherlock Holmes

 

Can't you guys just appreciate the damn quotes? Sure, they did some bad things, but no worse than what our politicians have been doing and endorsing for decades. At least they managed to inject some wisdom into history and tried to warn us of the things that most people are too stupid to even think about nowadays.

No, no I can't.

I will not ignore FACTS in order to romanticize history. These quotes are meaningless when you consider that they only thought "liberty" should be granted to white men. Quotes about equality are pure BS when they openly state that africans are inferior and that they don't think women should be involved in politics at all.


Definition Of Propaganda

information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.

Clearly quotes like these are repeated over and over in an attempt to paint the founding fathers as gods of men...as men who were intellectually superior...as men who were noble and good.

And yet, we KNOW this to be false...we know they held slaves and viewed women almost the same. We also know that their motivation for revolution had to do more with wealth than freedom.

So yes...the propaganda is continuing to work today. You don't even want to acknowledge any flaws in these men...you just want to spread the propaganda that they used hundreds of years ago to start a revolution. And you want to use this propaganda to attempt to further your own view and agenda that the country is not on the correct path.

Quotes only are meaningful because of the person who said it...and when that person is found to be a hypocrit and morally corrupt person...then the quote also loses it's luster and power.

Alot of those forefathers that did have slaves also did not treat them as such...

They treated them like employees rather than slaves, because they didn't condone slavery at all, but kept them to keep them safe from the real nasty type slave owners..

Because disavowing slavery and becoming pauper in a ditch as a result of their own financial devastation would've changed the world for the better, I guess.

That dang ole Constitution and its foundation of tyranny!

Originally posted by alienreality
Alot of those forefathers that did have slaves also did not treat them as such...

They treated them like employees rather than slaves, because they didn't condone slavery at all, but kept them to keep them safe from the real nasty type slave owners..

Well that's certainly a highly creative, revisionist slant on proceedings !

If they disapproved of slavery, then why not just add a simple amendment in the Bill of Rights outlawing it ?

Did Jefferson also pen the bill which made homosexuality an offence punishable by castration of males and cutting off a chunk of the nose of females because he wanted to ''protect'' gay people from worse treatment ?

Did the founding fathers also facilitate, or actively support, the genocide of American Indian people out of the goodness of their hearts ?