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This blog isn’t about politics.  But I thought with the recent elections and politics on people’s minds, some historic quotes from great Americans, that are especially meaningful to me, would be appropriate:

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”  -Thomas Jefferson

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” -Patrick Henry

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” -Thomas Jefferson

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” -Thomas Jefferson

“A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.”  -Amos Bronson Alcott

“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.”  -Samuel Adams

“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.” - Jimmy Carter, Crisis of Confidence speech, 1979

“In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, — if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.” -Benjamin Franklin.  Speech to the Constitutional Convention (28 June 1787)

I am not a Democrat.  I am not a Republican.  I am an American living in the greatest failing nation in the world.