Improvisation is an art. But you cannot always fly by the seat of your pants even though I swear that liberals often do in an attempt to justify whatever grand scheme to spend our money on buying votes they have come up with in a given day.
Improvisation is an art. But you cannot always fly by the seat of your pants even though I swear that liberals often do in an attempt to justify whatever grand scheme to spend our money on buying votes they have come up with in a given day. Whether it is Nancy Pelosi proclaiming that picking the pockets of some Americans to pay the way of others is somehow the fulfillment of the basic tenants of American society or the ever deranged Rep. John Conyers stating that socialized medicine is justified under the “Good and Welfare clause” of the Constitution, the left is adept and flying by the seats of their pants and just blurting out anything that comes to mind. One can only assume, for example, based on Nancy Pelosi’s ignorant and ill thought out comments that she was just fine with racial slavery as it existed in this country many years ago. After all during the time that horrid institution was in existence the productivity of some men and women was forcibly taken to benefit others and grant them some spurious right to something and to better their own lots in life. Hey, same thing but truth matters not to liberals just like size mattered not to Yoda.
Every week I get a lot of emails from really tripped out leftists who are so certain that they have the justification for their ideas and that they can quote the founding fathers of America accurately to prove that these men who risked life and limb to put America on a course for independence would really appreciate the socialism that has been brought to America's shores. My standing challenge has always been for just one of these people on the left to come up with some historical justification for their claims and actions. The emails I receive which are attempts to win this challenge are filled with completely made up quotes that I can often not even find anywhere. Yep, not even on the internet. Which in and of itself is amazing because the internet is often itself filled with false information. Others are hacked up and distorted comments that have been changed ever so slightly to distort the meaning from the original thought.
This week I thought that I would share some of this lunacy and show just how far into the depths of depravity the left will sink to justify themselves and their opinions. Here are just some of the lies liberals tells themselves and that they have shared with me in the past week.
“To Christianity I am indeed opposed!” – Attributed to Thomas Jefferson
This quote came to me in an email from a moonbat named Steven who attempted to argue with me that our founding fathers were not Christians, hated the thought of charity and believed that government should care for the general welfare of the people by giving them free stuff paid for by, "taxing the rich corporate bastards." He took great umbrage at an old posting of mine he found where I discussed how contrary to common belief nearly all of our founding fathers did indeed embrace Christianity. He went on and on about how Jefferson was not a Christian and how he would have, “spat in the face of any Christian he met.”
The problem? This quote is a hacked up butchery of what Jefferson actually said. The correct quote follows:
“To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.” – Thomas Jefferson Letter to Benjamin Rush (April 12, 1803)
Oops! Not a very convincing argument there Steven especially when you consider further that Jefferson signed documents with the attribution of, “In the year of our Lord Christ," and regularly attended church.
Here’s another misquote from Jefferson sent to me by Angie H. who proudly calls herself a, “Jeffersonian Liberal,” and who believes Jefferson would have, “whole-heartedly supported the government control of healthcare.”
She tells me that Thomas Jefferson actually uttered the words, “Men cannot be trusted to govern themselves. Therefore others must be trusted to govern them! Good government must regulate the pursuits of individuals and of industry!”
Do not be too shocked if you have never seen this quote from Jefferson. It simply does not exist. Actually it appears to be a mishmash of two quotes taken from his first inaugural address and massaged by a childish liberal mind seeking justification.
Here is what Jefferson actually had to say on this matter in 1801.
First is, “Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.” Here he was clearly taking on the concept of this emailer that if men cannot be considered fit to govern themselves then how on Earth could they govern others.
Second is, “Still one thing more, fellow-citizens -- a wise and frugal Government, which 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, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."
Yeah, not quite the same there when the actual quotes are provided huh? Oops! Try again sweetie.
I get variations of this next one all the time but I will pick on a particularly obscene reader who calls himself Rockie Balboa which I suspect is not his real name. He spent most of his email to me ripping me up one side and down the other in sailor like language for opposing Obamacare. See, “Rockie Balboa” claims that Madison actually said the Constitution is an unlimited grant of power to the federal government. Mr. “Balboa” obviously does not like my continual challenges to find language in the Constitution that gives the power to Congress to enact such a law.
He claims Madison said, “With respect to the words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified in an unlimited sense to grant authority to Congress as requested to provide for the people and their needs.”
Yeah, don’t try too hard to find that quote either. This is yet again another bastardized quote which I can only surmise that Mr. “Balboa” created on purpose to justify his opinion. Since I cannot find this false quote anywhere I have to assume such. There is an actual quote from Madison’s however which starts out the same but deviates wildly after that. This quote is as follows:
“With respect to the words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” – James Madison, Letter to James Robertson April, 20 1831
And when you consider that in his writings in Federalist 45 Madison said clearly, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State," you quickly see how ignorant this Balboa fool is.
Here is another. This time it is Jenny, no location or last name given, who “quotes” John Adams as saying, “Government must have some arbitrary power to accomplish the tasks required to secure the needs of the people.”
Yeah, cannot find that one anywhere either. I emailed Jenny back and asked for a source. She called me an idiot and a “dumb right-winger ideologue,” and told me that it was from The "Novanglus" Papers and claimed further that, “anyone who claimed to know anything about our founding history as you think you do would know this.”
Ok, so what did Mr. Adams actually say? Well I went to the The "Novanglus" Essays. I found in No. 3 the following quote which is the one I think Jenny is beating over the head with a twenty-five pound sledge trying to fit the round peg into the square hole.
“Obsta principiis, nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.”
But I am not sure. Her quote appears nowhere in those papers.
This is my life folks, for those of you who think that that being an author is glamorous. I spend a lot of my time dealing with idiots like this who would not know the truth if it hit them in the posterior and getting cursed at by liberal intellectuals who claim to have the answers. The worst part is these sorry folks probably vote and they probably vote Democrat blindly while imparting their “knowledge” to others they meet and spreading lies to win others over to their side.
It would be funny if our God given liberties were not at stake.
J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts http://www.cafepress.com/rightthings. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at http://www.libertyreborn.com
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