Founders on Democracy
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” Thomas Jefferson
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” Thomas Jefferson
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” John Adams
“Such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” James Madison
“[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.” — John Adams (An Essay on Man’s Lust for Power, 29 August 1763)
“The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty.” Fisher Ames
“A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. Fisher Ames
“Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.” Fisher Ames
“…democracy that pollutes the morals of the people before it swallows up their freedoms.” Fisher Ames
“It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” Alexander Hamilton: Speech in New York, urging ratification of the U.S. Constitution (1788-06-21)
“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” George Washington
————————————————-
Philosophers on Democracy
“Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.“ Plato
“Well, then, aren’t we justified in saying that we have adequately described how tyranny evolves from democracy and what it’s like when it has come into being.”
Plato’s Republic, Book VIII
“Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.” Aristotle
“Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.” Aristotle
“The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the party that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.” Lord Acton
“It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.” George Orwell
——————————————-
Benjamin Franklin on Elected office
“Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power, and the love of money. Separately each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of such men a post of honour that shall at the same time be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it.” Ben Franklin, At the Constitutional Convention
——————————————-
The United States was born as a Constitutional Republic with the federal government being constrained by the Constitution.
We became a Democracy in 1913 with the passing of the 16th and 17th Amendments and the Federal reserve act.
The Electoral College was created in an effort to avoid factions. (Parties) For a primer on the College go here: https://nccs.net/2010-11-elections-in-america-battle-of-the-parties For the full story read The Evolution and Destruction of the Original Electoral College by Gary and Carolyn Alder.
I loved it when the dreadlocked bitch got her clock cleaned at 2:03.
At 100 yards I can group 30 .223’s in the black. I’m no wiz, so just sayin’.
It seems a civil (or uncivil) war is indeed brewing.
Founders on Democracy
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” Thomas Jefferson
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” Thomas Jefferson
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” John Adams
“Such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” James Madison
“[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.” — John Adams (An Essay on Man’s Lust for Power, 29 August 1763)
“The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty.” Fisher Ames
“A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. Fisher Ames
“Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.” Fisher Ames
“…democracy that pollutes the morals of the people before it swallows up their freedoms.” Fisher Ames
“It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” Alexander Hamilton: Speech in New York, urging ratification of the U.S. Constitution (1788-06-21)
“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” George Washington
————————————————-
Philosophers on Democracy
“Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.“ Plato
“Well, then, aren’t we justified in saying that we have adequately described how tyranny evolves from democracy and what it’s like when it has come into being.”
Plato’s Republic, Book VIII
“Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.” Aristotle
“Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.” Aristotle
“The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the party that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.” Lord Acton
“It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.” George Orwell
——————————————-
Benjamin Franklin on Elected office
“Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power, and the love of money. Separately each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of such men a post of honour that shall at the same time be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it.” Ben Franklin, At the Constitutional Convention
——————————————-
The United States was born as a Constitutional Republic with the federal government being constrained by the Constitution.
We became a Democracy in 1913 with the passing of the 16th and 17th Amendments and the Federal reserve act.
The Electoral College was created in an effort to avoid factions. (Parties) For a primer on the College go here: https://nccs.net/2010-11-elections-in-america-battle-of-the-parties For the full story read The Evolution and Destruction of the Original Electoral College by Gary and Carolyn Alder.
Nicely compiled, Art. Hard to argue with any of those points.
I loved it when the dreadlocked bitch got her clock cleaned at 2:03.
At 100 yards I can group 30 .223’s in the black. I’m no wiz, so just sayin’.
It seems a civil (or uncivil) war is indeed brewing.
Standing, sitting, or prone?
M1907 or web sling?
heavy barrel?
SMK or TMK or ??
Ladies & Gents – Keep your powder dry.