“There is only one kind of freedom and that’s individual liberty. Our lives come from our creator and our liberty comes from our creator. It has nothing to do with government granting it.” – Former Congressman Dr. Ron Paul
“Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them. And they departed, and went …
“For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; …
“Large-Capacity Magazines Are Neither ‘Arms’ Nor Protected Accessories. We first examine ‘whether the plain text of the Second Amendment protects [Plaintiffs’] proposed course of conduct.’ Bruen, 597 U.S. at 32. Plaintiffs assert that their proposed conduct—possessing large-capacity magazines— implicates the text of the Second Amendment because, in their view, large-capacity magazines are arms commonly chosen for the purpose of self-defense. Defendant raises several distinct arguments to the contrary: large-capacity magazines are not ‘Arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment; they are not in common use for self-defense; they are most useful in military service; and they are dangerous and …
“It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much … to forget it.” – James Madison.
“I’m an old-school survivalist – being armed is right up there at the top of the list of things to be ready for. But I also have dang near thirty five years of being that old-school survivalist behind me. In all that time, I have needed to eat far more times than I’ve needed to point a gun at someone. Not saying it won’t happen…simply saying that, statistically, you’ll be more likely to be patting yourself on the back over your food stash than your gun and ammo stash. In addition to keeping you from, y’know, dying, food has an …
“In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the ‘collective’ right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of ‘the people’ to keep and bear arms. If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the eighteenth century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis.” – Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed, 1984
“In England, an inventor is regarded almost as a crazy man, and in too many instances, invention ends in disappointment and poverty. In America, an inventor is honoured, help is forthcoming, and the exercise of ingenuity, the application of science to the work of man, is there the shortest road to wealth.” – Oscar Wilde
“But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore …
“Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them. For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief. Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength. For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety. Wisdom is too high for a fool: he openeth not his mouth in the gate. He that deviseth to do evil …
“But, we also see in this chapter a recurring, universally human theme across time and space. The doomed, at the brink of civilizational destruction, have an attitude partly born of hubris and partly of naivete, perhaps best summed up as ‘It cannot happen to us.’ ” and, “Epilogue: HOW THE UNIMAGINABLE BECOMES THE INEVITABLE 1. As a general rule, the besieged vainly counted on help that rarely appeared — especially if they were seen as likely to lose. 2. Those surrounded looked to their own bastions and their past impregnability, rather than assessing realistically the unique and existential danger below the wall. 3. Prior discord often explained the vulnerability of the besieged, and its contribution to defeat. 4. The defenders rarely equate their present existential peril with the enemy military genius who reduced them to such straits. Nor can they accurately assess in comparison the mediocrity of their own leadership. 5. The targeted never fully grasped that the antebellum negotiations and diplomacy that had allowed a final and brief respite no longer applied, either because politics had changed in the powerful party, or the technological and organizational capabilities of the enemy had evolved. 6. The effort to destroy rather than merely defeat a trapped enemy ensures unprecedented savagery. And the zeal necessary to resist overwhelming odds eventually ensures a level of counter-violence that seals the fate of the defeated. 7. Once the victors are unleashed — and they always are — their commanders post facto express regret over their nihilistic cruelty, without any sense that they would do anything differently in the future. Education and pretenses of high culture empowered rather than limited the retribution of the conquerors.” – Victor Davis Hanson, from …
“An unwanted embrace from which you cannot escape is just a nicer form of tyranny.” – Jonah Goldberg
“Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the savings of frugality.” – John Tyler
“There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him.” – Thomas Jefferson
“Politicians of both parties told us that free trade with Asia and Latin America would spur economic growth, and maybe it did somewhere else. In our towns, though, factories continue shutting down or moving overseas.” – J. D. Vance
