By J.J. Jackson ——Bio and Archives--April 11, 2010
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First is, “Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.” Here he was clearly taking on the concept of this emailer that if men cannot be considered fit to govern themselves then how on Earth could they govern others. Second is, “Still one thing more, fellow-citizens -- a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."Yeah, not quite the same there when the actual quotes are provided huh? Oops! Try again sweetie. I get variations of this next one all the time but I will pick on a particularly obscene reader who calls himself Rockie Balboa which I suspect is not his real name. He spent most of his email to me ripping me up one side and down the other in sailor like language for opposing Obamacare. See, “Rockie Balboa” claims that Madison actually said the Constitution is an unlimited grant of power to the federal government. Mr. “Balboa” obviously does not like my continual challenges to find language in the Constitution that gives the power to Congress to enact such a law. He claims Madison said, “With respect to the words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified in an unlimited sense to grant authority to Congress as requested to provide for the people and their needs.” Yeah, don’t try too hard to find that quote either. This is yet again another bastardized quote which I can only surmise that Mr. “Balboa” created on purpose to justify his opinion. Since I cannot find this false quote anywhere I have to assume such. There is an actual quote from Madison’s however which starts out the same but deviates wildly after that. This quote is as follows:
“With respect to the words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” – James Madison, Letter to James Robertson April, 20 1831And when you consider that in his writings in Federalist 45 Madison said clearly, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State," you quickly see how ignorant this Balboa fool is. Here is another. This time it is Jenny, no location or last name given, who “quotes” John Adams as saying, “Government must have some arbitrary power to accomplish the tasks required to secure the needs of the people.” Yeah, cannot find that one anywhere either. I emailed Jenny back and asked for a source. She called me an idiot and a “dumb right-winger ideologue,” and told me that it was from The "Novanglus" Papers and claimed further that, “anyone who claimed to know anything about our founding history as you think you do would know this.” Ok, so what did Mr. Adams actually say? Well I went to the The "Novanglus" Essays. I found in No. 3 the following quote which is the one I think Jenny is beating over the head with a twenty-five pound sledge trying to fit the round peg into the square hole. “Obsta principiis, nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.” But I am not sure. Her quote appears nowhere in those papers. This is my life folks, for those of you who think that that being an author is glamorous. I spend a lot of my time dealing with idiots like this who would not know the truth if it hit them in the posterior and getting cursed at by liberal intellectuals who claim to have the answers. The worst part is these sorry folks probably vote and they probably vote Democrat blindly while imparting their “knowledge” to others they meet and spreading lies to win others over to their side. It would be funny if our God given liberties were not at stake.
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J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the lead editor contributor to American Conservative Daily.