Dinner Topics for Tuesday

 

Book Review:

The Last Line of Defense

Ken Cuccinelli

 

Liberty

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the blood stream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. ~Ronald Reagan

In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. ~Thomas Jefferson

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must get in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. ~James Madison

 

Rights and Equality

A right is an exercise of a freedom; it’s not a claim to take someone else’s freedom by forcing them into service for you. ~ Ken Cuccinelli

The lesson that life isn’t necessarily fair and that it’s not government’s job to make it fair is worth learning early on in life. My own mother taught me that. She taught me that when things seemed unfair, complaining wasn’t the answer; working harder was the answer. I wasn’t supposed to compare what I had against what others had; I was just supposed to work hard and make my life the best that I could. My parents and my faith also taught me that in the process, I was supposed to voluntarily help others; and by helping others, my own life would be enriched. ~ Ken Cuccinelli

Just as laws restrain individuals from harming one another, the Constitution restrains the government from harming the individual and his liberty. ~ Ken Cuccinelli

 

The Constitution doesn’t give us our rights; it guarantees them. And the government doesn’t give us our rights either; it protects them from foreign enemies and domestic criminals who threaten them. Instead, our rights come from God—we are born with them. ~ Ken Cuccinelli

 

You are born naturally free, and as long as you do no harm to others or to society itself, no one can deprive you of that freedom. ~ Ken Cuccinelli

 

When the Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal, it is stating that the United States has no ruling class and that no one is born to be ruled by another.  ~ Ken Cuccinelli

 

The statists also take the Declaration’s statement that we are all “created equal” to mean that it’s government’s responsibility to ensure equal results for everyone. The fact is that, in our founding tradition, “All men are created equal” means that no one is born to rule over another, that all citizens are treated equally under the law, and that our society has a goal of equal opportunity, not that everyone gets to have the same possessions, the same standard of living, or the same wage by government fiat.~ Ken Cuccinelli

 

The framers of the Constitution also knew that there would be people who would inevitably abuse their freedom by harming others and their property. Law enforcement officers and the courts exist to help catch and punish those who commit such wrongs. But the framers took great care to ensure that the government didn’t unduly restrict the freedom of everyone just so the small percentage of bad actors and criminals would be prevented from harming others. For example, just because some people have the potential to abuse their free speech rights by illegally slandering others, doesn’t mean the government reviews and censors every newspaper before it’s printed. That’s what a police state does; that’s not how a free society operates. ~ Ken Cuccinelli

 

A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth. ~Ronald Reagan

Welfare

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. ~ Daniel Webster

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and thence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with a whole series of hobgoblins.” ~H.L. Mencken

I personally believe that assisting one’s fellow man in need by reaching into one’s own pockets is praiseworthy and laudable. Dong the same by reaching into another’s pockets is despicable, dishonest, and worthy of condemnation. ~ Ken Cuccinelli

It’s not selfish to be frugal with money that belongs to someone else, and it’s certainly not compassion when you’re giving away other people’s money. ~ Ken Cuccinelli

 

Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. ~ James Madison

 

I once heard a great illustration of why we shouldn’t think of government as a charity: If you won $1 million in the lottery tomorrow and you wanted to use it to help the poor, would you donate it to a charity or give it to the government? Of course, most people would answer that they’d donate it to charity (I include churches under the general term charity in this section).

If that’s the case—that most people would choose to give their money to charity over government—then why do we constantly turn to government to solve social problems instead of turning to our charities and churches, which we trust a whole lot more to get the job done, and done more  efficiently? ~ Ken Cuccinelli

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated [in the Constitution]. ~Thomas Jefferson

 

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