Government Ed 101
America's founding fathers created the Constitution to limit the power of the government and to make it a servant of the people rather than the other way around. Over the years however, the Government has assumed powers far beyond that granted to it by the Constitution and "We the People".
Our only protection against an all powerful and tyrannical government is knowledge. We need to be able to recognize when the government has overstepped it's legal power and be willing to stand up against it when it does.
We have added our country's founding documents and many articles that sheds light on our government gone awry. You will notice that some of the articles or speeches were from long ago, but when you read them they could have easily been written just yesterday.
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Documents: Miscellaneous
Articles:
- “Whatever Happened to Free Enterprise?” - Ronald Reagan 1978
"There are 73 million of us working and earning by means of private enterprise to support ourselves and our dependents. We support, in addition, 81 million other Americans totally dependent on tax dollars for their year-round living. Now it's true that 15 million of those are public employees and they also pay taxes, but their taxes are simply a return to government of dollars that first had to be taken from the 73 million."
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- “Government Can Be Hazardous to Your Health” - M. Stanton Evans 1975
Nationally, Medicaid costs increased from $1.3 billion in 1967 to $5.5 billion in January 1970 in keeping with a similar explosion of costs for Medicare. Robert J. Myers, former chief actuary of the Social Security administration, observes that cost overruns for Medicare during the first three years of operation amounted to $11 billion—41 percent above the original estimates. For the hospital insurance portion of the program, costs were approximately double the original estimates. These results, of course, are in complete conformity with the experience of other nations that have adopted government "health insurance" programs.
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- “Bureaucracy v. The Private Sector” - George C. Roche III 1975
Since people have no choice over taxation, they have to pay for the public institution; and when the money to finance it has been forced out of them, they are offered its services "free." The choice then facing them is that of choosing between something which they have already been forced to pay for, and which is therefore available free or at reduced cost, and something for which they must pay again, at full cost. The most amazing testament to the poverty of public provision of services is that, given this choice, so many people do elect to pay again in order to obtain a service worth having.
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- “The Legitimate Role of Government in a Free Society” - Walter E. Williams 2000
What did the founders of the United States see as the legitimate role of government? To answer that question we should turn to the rule book they gave us: the United States Constitution. Most of what they considered legitimate functions of the federal government are found in Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution, which says, in part...
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- Defend Civilization - Mark Helprin 2002
I ask you to defend and protect what is great and good, to choose your battles, but to stand your ground. For little things cascade into big things, and even should the larger battle not go well, hold your position. Even if, in the end, you do not prevail—though you must—you will have done right, and the ghosts of those who came before you over many thousands of years, of those who fell unknown and unremembered while doing right, of those who upheld against all pressures and in the face of wounding opposition, will be justly honored, as you will be justly honored, by those who come after you.
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- A Conversation with Justice Clarence Thomas - Justice Clarence Thomas and Imprimis 2007
You hear people talk all the time about the Bill of Rights. But you should always keep in mind that the Bill of Rights was an afterthought. That’s why it’s made up of what are called amendments. It was not in the original Constitution. The rights in the Bill of Rights were originally assumed as natural rights, and some people at the time thought that writing them into the Constitution was redundant. Read the Declaration of Independence. We should always start, when we read the Constitution, by reading the Declaration, because it gives us the reasons why the structure of the Constitution was designed the way it was. And with the Constitution, it was the structure of the government that was supposed to protect our liberty. And what has happened through the years is that the protections afforded by that structure have been dissipated.
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