Thomas Jeferson 1816:

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.

Abraham Lincoln 1863:


"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war"

John Adams 1787:

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America
arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation,
nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance
of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation."

Great post! What was true back then still rings true today.

Interesting how history repeats itself.

In order to win an election you must first convince the people that they are in dire trouble. Then convince them that all others will only make that trouble worse. Then step up and of course fix it. (till the next election where some other persone is more convincing)

the sky is falling...

but I can hold it up...

4 years later.

the sky is falling... but I can hold it up.

AD INFINTIUM, AD NASUEAM....

O' for the days when you could just run through the streets singing 'TIPPYCANOE AND TYLER TOO'

OH wait... wasn't the sky falling then also?

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

Thomas Jefferson :

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

Just they way he said it tells me the sky must have been falling then also.

else he would have said...
'the care of human life and happiness is the first and only object of good government.'
Then would have been no need to have anything else unless he had an opponent to his view... which of cours meant....The sky is falling... Quick vote for the person with the most negative adds... they really know how to sling it... which is of course the best way to stop the sky from falling... is to run around screaming... THE SKY IS FALLING.