Some of my Favorite Quotations with Commentary

I’m an open, candid, highly opinionated, strong willed, person.

When you read the quotations I selected, below, and my commentary, you will have an extremely good idea of who I am, what I am about, what I stand for, how I reason, what are my core values, and what makes me tick.

Via these quotations and my commentary, I am going out of my way to disclose to you the real Pete Mancus, for your edification, to help you make an intelligent decision as to who is worthy of your vote, support, and donations.

Charm versus Sincerity

Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It’s a relief then to deal with a man who isn’t quite so delightful but a little more sincere.

– W. Somerset Maugham

My Commentary:

I wish I had the charm of the actor Gary Grant and the instant spontaneous humor of world class comedians, but I don’t. I do not consider myself to be charming or delightful. I am, however, “sincere”. I also have substance, tenacity, and courage.

Progress and Thought Control

It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.

– Justice Jackson, concurring and dissenting, in American Communications    Ass’n, C.I.O. v. Douds (1950) 339 U.S. 382, 442-443

My Commentary:

I agree, 100%, which is one major reason I am running for a political office.

From the podium, in a Sebastopol, California City Council public meeting, I once told them that at the rate they are going I predict it will not be long before they pass an ordinance telling us how to floss our teeth and wipe our anus. The spectators bust out laughing and applauded, apparently in agreement.

I am fed up with government officials telling me, and others, how to live, especially when their instructions and advice deviates from our Constitution’s clear commands.

The current U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, for example, was recently shown in an audio-visual recording on TV, recorded years ago, actually using the word “brainwash”, as in he recommended, strongly, that “progressive” Democrats engage in an active, sustained, campaign to “brainwash” [Holder’s word of choice] Americans about firearms, e.g., as if to demonize them and to demonize the private ownership of firearms and anyone who champions the Second Amendment as a vital codified individual right to firearms.

I am fully aware that a majority of the electorate in the 10^th Assembly District appear to be madly in love, politically, with U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both of whom have a record of railing against privately owned firearms, to the point that they both seem determined to follow Mr. Holder’s advice to “brainwash” the electorate.

When U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer rail against the Second Amendment and “the militia” concept, they conveniently never tell the rest of the story, which includes these facts: 1) President JFK, a Democrat, is on record as embracing “the militia” concept; 2) the JFK and the LBJ administrations had federal government agents give away, for free, then surplus modern military small arms to Blacks living in the rural South so those Blacks would have the pragmatic means to defend themselves when the KKK came to lynch them or burn them out of their homes; and 3) Dianne Feinstein got a CCW [concealed weapon permit], for a gun, to protect her hide. While she rails against unwashed peasants having a gun for lawful self-defense, she fancied herself as an Elitist, with some kind of a special hide, worthy of special protection . . . because she, arbitrarily, self-servingly, found an excuse for herself. She asserted her Second Amendment rights to a gun while arguing no one else had one. Do you suppose she knows how to spell hypocrite?

Saddest Epitaph

For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand when there was time.

– Associated Press v. National Labor Relations Board (1938) 301 U.S. 103, 141 [Justice George Sutherland, dissenting]

My Commentary:

I agree, 100%, which is one major reason I am running for a political office.

Liberty

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.

– Learned Hand

My Commentary:

I agree, 100%, which is one major reason I am running for a political office.

A Constitution, being a collection of concepts memorialized on paper, is incapable of being self-executing or self-enforcing. It relies on people who love liberty to breathe life into it, to use it, to function with fidelity to it, and to demand that its commands be obeyed.

Far too many citizens have a grossly irresponsible, naive, idea: They can ignore the Constitution or violate its commands and still expect a good result. You can’t put sand, glue, and mud in the gas tank and expect the car to start or take you where you want to go.

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man.

– Rousseau

My Commentary:

I agree, 100%, which is one major reason I am running for a political office.

If a nation or an individual values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony is that if its comfort or money it values more, it will lose that, too.

– W. Somerset Maugham

My Commentary:

I agree, 100%, which is another major reason I am running for a political office.

Freedom

We cannot spread freedom abroad when we abandon it at home.

– Thomas Jefferson

My Commentary:

I agree, 100%. I am disgusted with officials who do their best to circumvent our Constitution’s commands, who treat them as obstacles that must be bashed down so they have more power to govern the way they want to govern.

I reject the idea that the Bill of Rights went down with the Twin Towers on 9/11.

I am fed up with officials who demand we must surrender far too much liberty to make their wars against crime, terrorism, and drugs efficient and successful. Tyrants always demand one more little ole concession regarding liberty.

I don’t believe the “American village” can be saved by destroying it in the name of fighting off perceived threats and bogeymen, real, feigned, imagined, or concocted to scare us to death and into surrendering our most precious possession–an intangible labeled “Liberty” under the real American Constitutional Rule of Law.

I am fed up with officials who domestically terrorize me and you as they try to make us safe and secure.

Osama Bin Laden, or his spirt, has got to be laughing his damn fool head off regarding how he has so many Americans scurrying about, demanding constrictions on liberty and willing to surrender liberty to those demands.

Just as Ugly tends to hate Beauty, Security tends to hate Liberty. I prefer an unsafe Liberty to a pseudo “safe” non-Liberty.

I don’t want California or the U.S. to be turned into the functional equivalent of millions of  “Checkpoint Charlies” and/or the exercise yard of a prison.

Wisdom vs. Stupidity

. . . there is a general rule which never fails; that a prince who is not wise in his own right cannot be well advised.

– Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

My Commentary:

Again, I agree, 100%. Be forewarned: I do not suffer fools well. Never have. Never will.

Power

Power is the ability to obtain a desired result.

– A Univ of CA Political Science Professor

My Commentary:

There is a huge difference between power and powerful. If the goal is to thread a needle setting of a thermonuclear explosion will not accomplish that goal.

Power is also not finite. An idealistic, “go for broke”, determined, tenacious, fearless,  person with courage, audacity, facts, knowledge, and skill, is extremely powerful.

. . . by increasing the power of their master, they add weight to their own chains.

– Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government

My Commentary:

I don’t want to do anything that gives usurpers more power.

I want to take their usurpations [chains] off of my neck and yours and put the Constitution’s chains on their necks, wrists, and ankles, and tie them down to the Constitution’s chains, with a steel stake embedded deeply in concrete, with an armed guard on duty, standing watch, to prevent public servants/serpents from ever again slipping off their Constitutional collars and putting their damn chains on me . . .or you.

A Test to Determine How Good Are Government Officials

They who know the frailty of human nature, will always distrust their own; and desiring only to do what they ought, will be glad to be restrain’d from that which they ought not to do.

– Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government

My Commentary:

This is an excellent test for determining if an official is good or bad. It is, at its core, the foundation for the First Amendment’s Right to Petition for Redress of a Grievance.

Reformulated, what Algernon wrote is this: If you think you are governed by a bad leader, tell him to stop and why and wait to see what he does. If he does not reform, he is bad.

Most Important Political Office

The most important political office is that of the private citizen.

– Note: This statement is widely attributed to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis but it is also a disputed attribution. Despite the accuracy of the attribution, it is an idea that I embrace.

My Commentary:

I envision a triangle of political power, inverted, standing on one point, with the ordinary citizens, in mass, spread out across of the wide top, with their full weight upon all elected and appointed officials below them. Per this mindset, any U.S. President is at the bottom of the real political-legal pecking order, and next in line are the U.S. Supreme Court judges, etc. These public servants are exactly that–servants who work for the top dog, namely, their Public Masters, holders of the greatest, most coveted title on Earth: U.S. Citizen.

Free Speech

For Christ’s sake, open your mouths; don’t you people get tired of being stepped on?

– Bette Milder

My Commentary:

My sister told me she loves what Bette said. I do, too–immensely.

I found this quotation, along with many, at a law school in San Francisco where I took a continuing education of the bar class.

I loathe anyone’s boot on my neck or anyone who dares to gag me.

Importance of the Individual

This Nation . . . was founded on the principle that . . . the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

– John F. Kennedy, 1963

My Commentary:

I agree, which is one major reason I am running for a political office.

Disingenuous Public Servants

 We must always uphold the appearance of the law, especially when we are breaking the law.

– Boss Tweed, “Tammy Hall,” as quoted by his character in Martin Scorcese’s film “Gangs of New York”

My Commentary:

Tweed’s candor is insightful, stark, and sobering. Be on guard. Officials love to shuffle the laws like a card shark shuffles a deck and simultaneously tell you “Trust us.”

Constitutionalism

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

My Commentary:

TJ got it right.

. . . the Constitution . . . is sacredly obligatory upon all.

– George Washington, Farewell Address

My Commentary:

GW got it right, too. So many, however, treat the U.S. Constitution as a snot rag or worse.

[C]onstitutional lines are the price of constitutional government.

– People v. Camacho (2000) 23 Cal.4th 824, 838

My Commentary:

I agree with this 100%. However, sadly, there is gut wrenching, maddening, hard, objectively verifiable, stark evidence that many judges and state wide officers in California do not, and they, all too often, at best, give lip service to this concept.

If you disagree with me, I urge you to read what I wrote about wide spread corruption in California. A link to that long op-ed is here:

. . . we cannot expect others to respect our laws until we respect our Constitution . . . .,

– U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990) 494 U.S. 259, 297

My Commentary:

I agree with this 100%. When I see judges and officials disrespect our Constitution’s commands and usurp, I can’t help but loathe what they do and despise them, virulently.

Judicial Cowardice

Judicial cowardice is not a very good reason to refuse to support the Constitution.

– John E. Wolfgram, “How The Judiciary Stole The Right To Petition”, 31 U. West L.A. L. Rev. (Summer 2000)

My Commentary:

I agree 100%. I am convinced that many judges are cowards. Like many, I am also convinced that many of them fear what others think of them and they often adjust and present themselves in disguise, to avoid getting in trouble with their fellow judges or to advance their careers or both, regardless of their duty to function as Guardians of Liberty.

I highly recommend reading Mr. Wolfgram’s law review article, which is available for free on the Internet. If you do that the odds are high that you will never think of judges the same way. Instead, you will probably think of them, as a group, as Liberty Thieves, Freedom Haters, Usurpers, Judicial Tyrants, and Fudges, e.g., many of them often “fudge” or “cheat” when they interpret and apply the law, in a manner that always takes care of, guess who?, first . . . themselves.

Rights

A right that is not honored when invoked is no right at all.

– People v. Neal (2003) 31 Cal.4th 63, 89 (Justice Kennard, concurring)

My Commentary:

I agree 100%.

I also despise, virulently, the damn “Tyranny of the Majority”. A “majority” is not always a warm, cuddly, good thing. The damn majority itself can function as the mean spirited, stupid, ignorant, crazed, dictator. History is full of examples of majorities doing horrible things to wonderful people.

Usurpations

Toward the preservation of your government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite . . . that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts.

– George Washington, Farewell Address, 17 Sept 1796

My Commentary:

I agree 100%. Those with sinister, dangerous, unconstitutional agendas are often psychopaths who excel at making their egregious plans appear to be good.

. . . guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism . . . .

– George Washington, Farewell Address, 17 Sept 1796

My Commentary:

I agree 100%. GW was no fool. Patriotism is an exceedingly complex idea. We are plagued with Phoney Patriots, Pretended Patriots, and many who excel at manipulating or playing on one’s genuine patriotism to promote their own ulterior agendas.

. . . there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations; . . . abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which in republics, have more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. . . . This danger ought to be wisely guarded against.

– James Madison, “In Favor of the Federal Constitution”, 6 June 1788

My Commentary:

James Madison, one of the most intellectual of the Founding Fathers, insightfully hit a cerebral gland slam with this assessment.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.

– Frederick Douglas

My Commentary:

Of all of the big names in history, Frederick Douglas would be on my short list of people I would love to spend a lot of time with if I could bring them back to life. “[W]hat I will quietly submit to” is a low threshold of usurpations. In stead of tolerating a boot on my neck, I prefer to sternly rebuke usurpers and put them in a blazing hot spotlight and keep them there until they reform, resign, and are held accountable.

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

– Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).

My Commentary:

I was born to freedom. I know the value of U.S. citizenship. Rights codified in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution are worth fighting to the death to enforce. I am fed up with “progressives” trying to advance their agenda, under the non-meritorious claim that their values are more “progressive” than the Founders’ or the Framers’. Many “progressives” are Tyrant Wannabees or Useful Idiots for Tyrant Wannabees.

One of the most effective ways of diluting or expanding a constitutionally guaranteed right is to substitute for the crucial word or words of a constitutional guarantee another word or words, more or less flexible and more or less restricted in meaning.

– Justices Black and Stewart, Griswold v. State of Conn. (1965) 381 U.S. 479, 509

My Commentary:

Justices Black and Stewart are 100% correct. This ruse is a favorite “progressive” ploy, e.g., this is how they commonly slip in their rhetoric and ideas, how they replace “gold” with “fool’s gold”, how they substitute their opinions for the law, how they reduce the value of U.S. citizenship.

There are many “Rules of Constitutional Construction”. I know them. Do you?

If you don’t know the “rules of the game”, you are at a big disadvantage. If you can’t tell when the umpire or the other guy is cheating, you will likely not win, even if you should.

American Hypocrisy

Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future . . . ¶ to the American slave, . . . your Fourth of July . . . celebration is a sham; . . . your national greatness swelling vanity; . . . your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; . . . mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy–a thin  veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. This is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the Untied States at this very hour. . . . ¶ roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, . . . lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

– Frederic Douglas, Independence Day Address, Rochester, New York, 4 July 1852

My Commentary:

FD’s opinion–as stark, unequivocal, and damning as it is–was valid in 1852 and it is, in many ways, sadly, still valid, to this day. This is especially true if the measuring sticks are the U.S. Constitution, the Bible, the Golden Rule, or the Sermon on the Mount.

 Respect for the Law

If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectful.

– Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice

My Commentary:

True! Sadly, far too many lawmakers, officials, and judges go out of their way to manufacture virulent contempt for the law . . . and then exacerbate by refusing to embrace a remedy for their usurpations.

Government as a Teacher

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. . ..  If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law until himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means–to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal–would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.

– Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)

My Commentary:

Brandeis hit a cerebral grand slam with this assessment.

There is wide spread corruption in California. Read the op-ed I wrote which can be found at this link:

A major reason I am running for office is to do my best to force government to obey its own rules and to strip officials of an ill-conceived doctrine that judges invented that is 100% foreign to the U.S. Constitution, namely, “Absolute Immunity” for wrongdoers who hold a government job.

How to Fight and What to Attack

To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill . . . what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.

– Sun Tzu

My Commentary:

Sun Tzu hit a cerebral grand slam with this insight and his advice.

My sister, to her credit, also singled out this quotation as being exceedingly wise.

My primary goal is to fight bad ideas with good ones, to expose usurpers, to expose corrupt officials, to make life exceedingly uncomfortable for them by the power of my mind and my will, like holding a magnifying glass to them, focusing a bright light of facts and law, against them, to make them, in effect, “burn” in the court of public opinion, to make things so “hot” they resign and are prosecuted and held accountable.

This needs to be done. The alternatives–revolt, revolution, blood shed, or continuing to yield to their oppressions–are not desirable.

Actual resort to force and violence is best held in reserve as a last ditch effort, if needed, to restore constitutionalism.

The time to push back, hard, cerebrally, and demand a strict accountability, is now. Corrupt officials and usurpers [there is a difference] are begging for, and have earned, a long over due comeuppance.

If not now, when? I want to feel “free” before I die. I want constitutionalism restored in my lifetime.

Patriotism

I hope the patriotism of the people will continue and be a sufficient guard to their liberties.

– James Madison, “In Favor of the Federal Constitution”, 6 June 1788

My Commentary:

I share the same hope.

As a realist and as a cynic, I know, however, that I, alone, am bound to fail if enough  good people fail to find their courage, fail to step up, and fail to support what I champion.

No one can count on “George” to step up. There is no “George”. There is only you and me. If we won’t do what needs to be done, it won’t get done.

A tyrant can break one tooth pick at a time. Ten thousand tooth picks, united, bundled together, truly committed, are a bit harder to break. Millions of united tooth picks can function like a giant redwood tree, the largest and longest living thing on Earth, and they are much harder to destroy.

The tooth picks outnumber the usurpers and the corrupt officials. They can also vote them out of office and apply enough pressure to have them all held accountable.

Rule by Brute Force

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizen may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

– Ayn Rand

My Commentary:

A compelling argument can be made that we are, sadly, already beyond “the ultimate inversion . . . the darkest periods of history . . . .”, which is another reason I elected to run for office. I am convinced of this: Usurpers and corrupt officials will either be held accountable or there will be war–a major, snarly, lethal, war, and blood spilled on Main Street. This is not hyperbole. Many Americans have “had it”, and they are prepared.

A few years ago, during a trip, several men told me that the local men had enough firepower, munitions, food, and explosives, etc., pre-positioned in nearby hills that the 82^nd Airborne, the 101^st Airborne, the Rangers, the Green Berets, and all of the Marine Corps’ divisions would never defeat them. I am clueless if that kind of talk was bravado or factual. These men sounded sincere, angry, and determined to remain free.

Mao Tse Tung was 100% correct when he said, “Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun.” That is the reason “progressive” Democrats rail against the Second Amendment and the individual right to firearms. They do not want to encounter armed resistance when they make clearer their ultimate goals per their agenda, which amounts to gutting the U.S. Constitution and replacing its public policy choices with their self-serving, disingenuous, “progressive” values with are anti-progress.

The world’s largest, potentially powerful, guerrilla force is, for lack of a better term, “the American deer hunter”. Only a darn fool would openly too boldly reveal too much of his or her ulterior agenda, for fear of arousing an armed American citizenry.

No American general or admiral, dead, living, or yet to be born, can conceive of any strategy to defeat “the American deer hunter”.

“Progressive” Democrats, for decades, especially in California, lead by U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, have railed against privately owned firearms, the NRA, and the Second Amendment. Every time one person misused a firearm, Feinstein and Boxer demanded passage of more draconian anti-gun laws and demonized responsible firearm owners.

I can’t think of a dumber idea than to blame, or demonize, 80 million Americans who did not misuse a gun every time some one did. “Guilt by association” is fallacious reasoning which smacks of demagoguery.

Would Senators Feinstein or Boxer want to be blamed, or demonized, for what other politicians do?

While DiFi and Boxer rail against “the militia” concept, they ignore a stark, undisputed, fact: Article I, Section 8, Clause 15 of the U.S. Constitution states that “Congress shall have the power . . . 15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repeal invasions.” [Emphasis added.]

The Department of Homeland Security, the National Guard, the U.S. Armed Forces, the FBI, etc., are not “the militia”.

The U.S. Constitution calls upon one, and only one, class of people “to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repeal invasions”, and that class is “the militia”, not even the “the army” or “the land and naval forces”. Take a hard look at Article 1, Section 9, Clauses 12-16, inclusive. In those clauses the Constitution mentions the army, the navy, the land and naval forces, and the militia. Thus, the Framers clearly knew and appreciated, the difference, and, with that realization, they, on purpose, assigned the responsibility “to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions” to only once class of people: members of “the militia”. They did this because, after their experience with England’s Red Coats, with the king sent to redress their grievances, they, understandably, feared a standing, strong, powerful, professional armed forces.

For a detailed analysis of the constitutionally correct role for the militia in homeland security, read attorney Edwin Vieira’s Constitutional “Homeland Security”.

Congress, and the California legislature, have elected to deny “the militia” any role in defending the homeland or in enforcing this nation’s or this state’s laws. This failure to call up the militia and task it to discharge its constitutional duties, and to instead concentrate more military power in the hands of our Armed Forces, the National Guard, and police departments, militarizing civilian police, drives a wedge between the Government’s “Army” and the People’s “Army” [the militia] and ordinary citizens. This wedge, coupled with this unwillingness to trust citizens with firearms, breeds substantial distrust and fear among these citizens, police, and the U.S. Armed Forces. This distrust is real, it is serious, it is debilitating, and it is dangerous. Anyone who disagrees with me about this is uninformed, under informed, mislead, or in denial.

The U.S. Constitution gives “the militia” legitimate, constitutional status, in multiple places, e.g, Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16 and the Second Amendment.

California’s Constitution also gives the militia, and only the militia, the legitimate role, and duty, “to execute the law”. Article V, Section 7 of California’s Constitution states, “The Governor is commander in chief of the militia that shall be provided by statute. The Governor may call it forth to execute the laws.” [Emphasis added.]

Every time our mis-leaders, federal and state, fail to re-vitalize “the militia” concept and use it “to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions”or “to execute the law”, they deviate from two Constitution’s structure, two grand plans–one for the nation, and the Framer’s vision for Americans, and one for Californians.

One major reason “progressives” refuse to re-vitalize “the militia” is they refuse to admit that “We the People” have a right to be armed, and they also know–and fear–correctly, that it would be harder for them to boss around a re-vitalized militia because a re-vitalized militia would have deep roots to America’s core values, many of which are irreconcilable with “progressive’s” values.

If “progressives” ever succeed in getting citizens to surrender their firearms, or forcefully have citizens disarmed, when the government elects to confiscate private property, curtail or suspend rights, declare martial law, suspend habeas corpus, and/or initiate state sponsored genocide against citizens, how will disarmed citizens stop that kind of abuse?

Even when citizens are armed, government officials usurp, are corrupt, condescending, smug, arrogant, and unrepentant. I dread to think how awful–how insufferable–they would be if they ever disarmed ordinary citizens.

 Virtue

. . . there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness . . . between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.

– George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 30 April 1789

My Commentary:

GW is correct. Virtue and happiness do tend to go together, albeit not always.

No one likes to be called a fool. It is axiomatic, however, that fools do persist with their folly, looking for love, money, fame, glory, and power, etc. in the wrong places, most of which are non-virtuous.

Citizens’ Responsibility for Their Liberty

. . . the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered . . . as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

– George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 30 April 1789

My Commentary:

“[S]acred fire of liberty” is a wonderful image. GW, as a learned wordsmith, could hold his own with the best of them.

“[E]ntrusted to the hands of the American people.”? GW, again, correct, for better or worse.

Years ago, I had permission from the Commanding General of the Third Marine Aircraft Wing to fly in 3^rd MAW assets on a “strict not to interfere basis”, opportunities which I relished and cherished.

One day, while waiting for a flight at MCAS El Toro, I went to their “head” to relieve myself before a flight. While leaving the “head” I saw a large sign, above a full length mirror, that said, “You are looking at the person most responsible for your safety.” When I read the sign, which I saw before I saw the mirror, I looked around, looking for this “person” most responsible for my safety. I was alone in this “head”. Intrigued by this sign, I read it again and looked around some more. I then saw the mirror . . . and, BAM!, I saw myself, in the mirror, under that sign. Only then did I get it: I was, and I am, the person most responsible for my safety. God bless the Marines. Their teaching methods, and reminders, are effective.

Fellow citizens, each of you are the person most responsible for your safety. It is imprudent to count on government to protect you, your rights, or your safety.

Government is not benign. Government all too often is nothing more than callous, indifferent, force, period.

Furthermore, if you think cops have a duty to protect you, as a matter of law, you are flat out wrong. If you disagree with me, read attorney Richard Steven’s Dial 911 and Die! By California statutes and California case decisions, plus U.S. Supreme Court case decisions, governments’ law enforcement agencies and officers have no duty to protect you and are legally and financially immune for failing to protect you. However, the same officials who have granted law enforcement immunity for failing to protect you have also gone out of their way to make it a crime for you to protect yourself, if you use a gun without their permission. Hence, their perverted idea of “good citizenship” is this: When assaulted, if you can’t cope on your own, shut up and just die. Don’t make a fuss. Most importantly: “Never do anything before you die that might poke holes in our “progressive” ideas about what constitutes good public policy or good citizenship or both. Trust us. We know best.”

Dangers of Political Parties

Let me . . . warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally . . . . ¶ The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, . . . has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. [and] this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism . . . [and] the ruins of public liberty.

– George Washington, Farewell Address, 17 Sept 1796

My Commentary:

I agree with GW.

I am always amazed at how excessively people go bonkers with wild abandonment and screaming support for political candidates and tend to vote according to party lines, no matter what.

I never cast a vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’ve forgotten more about “political science” and “law” relevant to being governor than he ever knew, or learned, while governor. Arnold, to me, was never well qualified for that job and, the most charitable, and professional language I can use to describe him as governor, is this: he was an embarrassment to me as a Republican and as a U.S. citizen. Gerry Brown, however, is not an improvement.

Religion and Morality

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. . . . these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. . . . let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion . . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

– George Washington, Farewell Address, 17 Sept 1796

My Commentary:

My sense is that many “progressives” are atheists or agnostics. Since they don’t believe in God, but they do embrace Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as accepted fact, they have, to me, a queer approach to governance, namely, that Man, not God, is the ultimate source of all rights. I disagree.

I also observe that most of the Ten Commandments are replicated in the California Penal Code.

Many people want to escape an absolute moral code. Many people think that life is just a mad dash to see who is the strongest and most fit, and, because they believe there is no god, no heaven, and no hell they have a green light to be ruthless, as long as they don’t get caught or at least aren’t held accountable, even if caught.

I disagree with this “anything goes” approach.

I believe some excellent rules to live by are 1) the commands in the U.S. Constitution, 2) the commands in the Bill of Rights, 3) the commands in the Ten Commandments, 4) the Christian “Golden Rule”, and “the sermon on the mount”.

Conflict

 Cultivate peace and harmony with all. . . . just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated.

– George Washington, Farewell Address, 17 Sept 1796

My Commentary:

GW’s advice is excellent.

. . . give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.

– George Washington, Farewell Address, 17 Sept 1796

My Commentary:

Again, GW’s advice is excellent.

Good Laws

[I seek] the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government–the ever favorite object of my heart and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

– George Washington, Farewell Address, 17 Sept 1796

My Commentary:

I would do back flips, in ecstasy, if my fellow citizens diligently strived to enjoy “the benign influence of good laws under a free government” . . . and had the courage to achieve that goal.

Poor Folks on Welfare

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 traveled 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.

– Benjamin Franklin, “On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor”, 1766

My Commentary:

Franklin hit a cerebral grand slam with his enduring wisdom. I am for helping the poor but only within the broad parameters of what Franklin staked out.

Equality means a real, meaningful, sustained equality before the law. Donald Trump’s vote does not count for more than a less affluent citizen’s vote.

Equality also means a real, meaningful, robust, sustained equal opportunity to elevate one’s social-economic status.

Equality and Opportunity do not mean, however, an equal result. Precisely because human beings are different, with different talents, attitudes, and work ethics, when given a meaningful equality before the law and an equal opportunity to succeed, there will be un-equal results.

Un-equal results are not proof of unlawful discrimination. Government should not engage in wealth redistribution or social engineering via taxation to achieve equal results. Wealth redistribution is a bankrupt concept. It creates a powerful disincentive for producers and it creates a powerful incentive for the poor to do less than they can to self-improve to elevate themselves.

Happiness

The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage.

– An Ancient Greek

My Commentary:

By what I will communicate next, I don’t mean to offend or insult anyone, but, the truth is what it is.

One major problem we face is this: Far too many Americans do not have “convictions” let alone “the courage of their convictions”. They are ignorant of history. They don’t know what happened earlier in history or how we got to where we are or where they stand on history’s time line or the horrendous price paid in the most precious of currency–human blood, human courage, and human lives–for what we have today, and, in their ignorance, they are willing to throw much of the good that we do have away, willy nilly, and then leap for the “gold ring” that manipulators with ulterior agendas hold out for them.

To exacerbate matters, far too many Americans are functional constitutional illiterates. They have never read the U.S. Constitution. They don’t know what’s in it. They don’t care to read it. They are lazy. They don’t give a damn. They don’t understand how their freedom to do whatever they want to do, ultimately, hinges on how that Constitution is applied.

Reality Check

Don’t piss on me and call it rainwater.

– One gunfighter to another, from a Clint Eastwood movie

My Commentary:

Woe to anyone who urinates on me, smiles, blows off what they did, and expects me to smile back.

Tyrants

This hand, enemy to tyrants, by the sword seeks calm peacefulness with liberty.

–Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government

My Commentary:

Algernon, in this one sentence, succinctly and eloquently, summed up my core orientation toward government, officials, and my fellow citizens.

Corruption and Tyranny

The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.

–Thomas Jefferson

My Commentary:

TJ is 100% correct.

How Government Sends Virtuous Citizens to Their Death

Most codes do not distinguish between acts against the government and acts against the oppression of government. The latter are virtues; yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former.

–Thomas Jefferson

My Commentary:

Sadly, TJ is–again–100% correct.

I am fed up with being on the receiving end of government usurpations, and I want to do what I can to reduce the odds that any one else will be on the receiving end of such usurpations.

I am convinced that most officials find it difficult, if not impossible, to tell the truth if the truth is adverse to their perceived immediate or long term interests. Instead, most officials will be expedient, to the point of even committing perjury to avoid being held accountable, even when they know their perjury will likely trigger a horrible wrong, under color of law, for a fellow citizen.

For a real life example of how California’s government has treated a virtuous citizen, read the op-ed I wrote about corruption that can be found by clicking here.