I believe in welfare, and I disbelieve in user pays education, healthcare and so on.

Plus, that is a different form of that quote, and I suspect it isn't correct.

Its a variation, but true to the spirit.

Attorney General John Ashcroft painted the defenders of civil liberties as anti-American fear-mongerers when he said in December: “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies and pause to America’s friends.”

Reichmarshall Hermann Goering of the Third Reich once said: “It is always a simple matter to drag the people along” to do “the bidding of the leaders,” regardless of the form of government. “All you have to do,” he said, “is to 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.”

If I recall there was another quote kicking around at the time of Jefferson's quote highlighted by Mule..

It went along the lines of 'no taxation without representation..'

And I believe that this quote, along with jeffersons' was directed at the reality then of being a colony, when there was taxa tion yet the seemingly democratic British did not allow the 'Americans' to vote or have representation..

BTW at the time the regime that imposed this 'enlightened' view on American was what we would label a 'conservative' regime today.

Taken in its contemporary context the quote takes on a very differnet meaning than that implied by Mule in his abstraction....

You can't change a quote! If you were Dan Rather, you'd have to hang yourself out to dry for making up evidence which was true to the spirit!

That aside, as MFAFF says the context is important (as is the exact wording). If you were to take Jefferson's quote (the real one) as "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." and to apply it to taxes (as you've done) is to:

a) define "furnish contribution of money"; and/or at the same time
b) widen "propogation of opinions".

The logical conclusion of your approach, spread across a population, is taxes paying only for those items wanted by all. This means virtually no tax, as well as no welfare, no healthcare, no social security, no entitlements, etc. It also means a small or non-existent military, minimal police, etc. In other words, it doesn't work.

So logic dictates that what Jefferson said is not in the context of taxation, which a simple internet search tell me is correct - it is part of a Bill to establish religious freedom --> propagation of opinions is in the context of God and religious beliefs.

http://www.conservativeusa.org/vareligiousfreedom.htm

I came across a very interesting quote in researching my post - Jefferson also said:

Context is here - take it as you will. Jefferson the proponent of progressive taxation.

Or (google if you want context):

Probably because that is what they said about Viet Nam...that we never lost a major battle, but still lost the war. Oh, wait, this is nothing like 'Nam.:rolleyes:

And as far as waging an economic war against the United States goes, we're one big explosion in Saudi Arabia away from $100/barrel oil. Let's see what that does to the economy.

Luckily for Al Qaida, we invaded Iraq enabling them to move their training camps there from Afghanistan so now the terrorists won't have to travel quite so far to do the "wet" work in Saudi Arabia.

Invading Iraq has done nothing to combat terrorism. I believe it has done just the opposite and is fanning the flames.

Dan

I don't know why he was continually upbeat, other than as a ham-handed way to shield the public from the hard truth. And to hide his administration's continual mistakes.

You know that "ding" when you are sitting in the salesman's office, and you finally say to yourself, "this guy is f**king me over, I can't trust him." You walk out. That's what the American people are doing right now.

You can't expect to promise the people that we will be greeted as liberators, that a small post-invasion force would be adequate, that Iraq money would pay for the reconstruction (ha!), and that (over and over and over) the insurgency was almost dead, and then expect them to have the stomach for a long, hard, dirty, costly war.

Its called leadership ... the President needed to inspire people, to convey the stakes of this conflict and give them the inspiration to do whatever it took to win. And of course, his administration needed to competently manage the war. They fell far short on both counts.

And of course I considered your questions. I told you it made me sick thinking about the consequences. But the reality is what it is. Let's not make the same mistake as the administration, believing what we WANT to believe rather than the truth.

Rodeo- Well, you guys may get what you want, in time.

I hope you, and people like you, can live with the consequences of handing the enemy a victory.

- Skip

I want a competent President.

I didn't hand the enemy anything, my President did. So did yours ... whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

I thought more of you Skip -- "you guys" "people like you" "get what you want"

You mean we traitorous, pinko, cowards? The ones that want terrorism to achieve glorious victory? Is that who you mean? Is that what "we" want?

You won't achieve glorious victory by burying your head in the sand.

Rodeo,

Do you believe there were times during WWI, WWII or other wars "agreeable to you" in which the probability of our success looked even more bleak than you portray the situation in Iraq today?

There were times in WWI and WWII that make Iraq look like a birthday party. American resolve has been sorely tested in the past, and we have always come through. God, we came within an inch or two of losing the Revolutionary War.

But you miss the point. This conflict, like the wars you mention, requires resolve, sacrifice, determinedness. Even more so. It’s almost impossible to imagine a more difficult task than to bring democracy to this hostile part of the world. It requires a rare combination of force and diplomacy. And buckets of money. And partners would be nice.

The resolve to accomplish this comes from the American people. And this administration has lost the American people. Through incompetence and dishonesty.

Don’t think I’m happy about it. I’m sick over it. But denying it will not help matters.

"glorious victory"? - get a life.

We keep forgetting you're from Canada.....so you wouldn't know what that means.:)

I have a lie, a very good one at that, and I don't have to troll sites like you do. Why don't you stick to your socialist country's crappy sites and stay out of our affairs. Typical of ignorant liberal idiots like you, you have taken a quote, one that wasn't even originally mine, and taken it out of context.

Well, you take out the word "patriotism" and you have the play of the anti-American swine and their politically motivated Democrat party who want to capitalize on this movement...This is why you cannot trust socialists (as fascists were).

Cheney was right and his statement has no relationship, other than converse, with what the socialist Goering stated.

There was no abstraction...The quote speaks for itself.

You abstracted a different direction entirely and Jefferson spoke to that direction...

"The rights of the people to the exercise and fruits of their own
industry can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers
not subject to their control at short periods." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1816.

One your worst posts, Mul - and that's saying alot. Wrong on so many levels.

Einstein you're not. :D

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." -- James Madison

Which I will read as "damn your good...ouch that hurts because it is so true" :D