Sunday, March 4, 2012

Freedom Fighters: UNCOMMON Farmers and a Nail-maker

The American Revolutionaries had self-esteem. They were the kind who would not be ruled.

On April 19, 1775, “By the rude bridge that arched the flood, their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, here once the embattled FARMERS stood, and fired the shot heard ‘round the world.”

"In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail-maker. On returning home after an absence of ten years, I found my farms so much deranged... My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an additional title of nobility or the ensigns of a new order are in Europe." - Thomas Jefferson

In 2012, there are people who, in 1775-76, would have whined that the British had all the riches and might. The same people would have rejected George Washington, faulting him for having been successful and rich.

The Revolutionary FARMERS were not envious whiners. Like the nail-maker, they  were men of mettle. I call on their moral descendants: Let us fight for freedom! 

17 comments:

Ilyn Ross said...

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=244100099015757&id=1346466773&ref=notif&notif_t=like#!/photo.php?fbid=389418734417422&set=p.389418734417422&type=1&theater

Ilyn Ross said...

Honest political ads are a noble PUBLIC SERVICE. “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.... The spread of information [has] its effect towards supporting free and good government.... All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” - Thomas Jefferson

"Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice." - John Adams

"Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong; that is your oath." - Knight's Oath, Kingdom of Heaven

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dUj6nOcQdw&feature=player_embedded

Ilyn Ross said...

Mitt Romney: Restoring the American Promise

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46628167/

Ilyn Ross said...

Illinois victory speech -

http://www.c-span.org/flvPop.aspx?src=archive/c12/c12_032012_romney.flv&msg=You+are+watching+the+C-SPAN+Networks&start=3.265&end=-1

Ilyn Ross said...

Beautiful Mitt pic -

http://www.facebook.com/mittromney#!/photo.php?fbid=10151412847325352&set=p.10151412847325352&type=1&theater

Ilyn Ross said...

Mitt Romney Delivers Remarks in Chicago: “The Freedom To Dream”

Glorious speech.

http://mittromneycentral.com/2012/03/20/mitt-romney-delivers-remarks-in-chicago-%e2%80%9cthe-freedom-to-dream%e2%80%9d/

Ilyn Ross said...

Mitt Pic -

http://www.facebook.com/mittromney#!/photo.php?fbid=3561601886531&set=a.1387488495055.55387.1467348903&type=1&theater

Ilyn Ross said...

The Love Story Continues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RaaCFDMrPA&feature=player_embedded

Ilyn Ross said...

Mitt Romney - Born Free

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQJaZC4wZUA&feature=youtu.be

Ilyn Ross said...

Socialists: Adults demanding to be BABYSAT.

To a woman who said, " You are all for freedom and the pursuit of happiness... what makes me happy [is] free birth control," Romney responded @ 1:59, "If you are looking for free stuff you don't have to pay for, vote for the other guy. That's what he's all about. That's not what I'm about."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/03/21/oreilly_romney_has_drawn_a_sharp_contrast_between_him__obama.html

Ilyn Ross said...

“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” - Thomas Jefferson

Mitt Romney chose a noble profession, Private Equity, which finances start-ups or struggling companies, where only reason and persuasion can be used. Frugal and proficient, he was extraordinarily successful.

Romney is a serial deficit eradicator and surplus creator. At the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, he inherited a $370 million deficit. He left behind a $100 million surplus, contributing $1 million of his own money, & drawing no salary for 3 years. As MA governor with an 85% Democratic legislature, Romney faced an immediate $650 million shortfall & a projected $3 billion deficit for the next year. Romney erased the deficit and created a 2 billion surplus while cutting taxes 19 times. He drew a salary of $1 a year.

Thomas Jefferson said, “I, however, place economy among the first & most important REPUBLICAN virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared…. I consider the fortunes of our republic as depending, in an eminent degree, on the extinguishment of the public debt." As president, his party abolished ALL excise taxes and reduced the government debt from $83 million to $57 million, while spending $15 million to double the then size of the USA.

By his actions, Mitt Romney is a JEFFERSONIAN.

http://mittromneycentral.com/2012/03/20/mitt-romney-delivers-remarks-in-chicago-%e2%80%9cthe-freedom-to-dream%e2%80%9d/

Ilyn Ross said...

As governor with an 85% Democratic legislature, drawing $1 annual salary for 4 years, Romney cut taxes 19 times, turning a $3B deficit into a $2B suplus. As president, he will cut taxes, balance the budget, and pay down the netional debt. That means cutting spending.

@8:55 "... across the board 20% rate cut for every American. I'll also repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax [AMT] and we will abolish, finally, the death tax. [Obama] has now proposed raising taxes on small businesses and job creators. I am gonna lower those taxes. I will also lower the corporate rate to larger businesses to 25%. I'll make the R&D [research & development] tax credit permanent to foster innovation. I'm gonna end the repatration tax to return investment back to our shores... Let's finally have a tax plan that puts Americans back to work."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzY8ppsAIdQ

Ilyn Ross said...

Socialists: Adults demanding to be BABYSAT. Socialism: Trafficking in government-extorted property.

From Royal Serf: “Sir, I have a hundred British pounds in my wallet. If I don’t share it with you, I am not infringing your rights. No one ...has a right to it except me. A law mandating its disposition is a stick-up. A government could call it taxation or nationalization, but any honest man recognizes its nature: it is legalized armed robbery. Honesty shines light on the fact that as it is a crime for an individual to rob or loot, it is a crime for a government to expropriate the property of any of its citizens.”

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=372999666063904&set=o.131108966977169&type=1&theater

Ilyn Ross said...

Why I Am Not a Conservative
By Nobel laureate F. A. Hayek

"The conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule - not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them. Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people." - F. A. Hayek

http://www.cato.org/pubs/articles/hayek-why-i-am-not-conservative.pdf

Ilyn Ross said...

Hayek "regarded any attempt by government to redistribute income or capital as an unacceptable intrusion upon individual freedom: 'the principle of distributive justice, once introduced, would not be fulfilled until the whole of society was organized in accordance with it. This would produce a kind of society which in all essential respects would be the opposite of a free society."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

Ilyn Ross said...

The Letters of Thomas Jefferson: 1743-1826
A NAIL-MAKER

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl112.htm

Ilyn Ross said...

By the time Thomas Jefferson was six, he had read most of the books in his father’s library. At age 22, he passed the bar. When he was 26 years old, chosen for the first time to be a member of a legislature, he submitted a bill for the EMANCIPATION of ALL slaves. As a lawyer in 1770, age 27, Jefferson defended a slave, saying: "Under the law of nature, all men are born free." He wrote the Declaration of Independence at age 33.

While abolishing ALL excise taxes
Including the whiskey tax
In the first year of his first presidency,
While engaging in the Barbary War
Within two months of his first presidency,
And then spending $15 million
In the Louisiana Purchase
To double the then size of the USA,
Jefferson reduced the national debt
From $83 million to $57 million.

Jefferson was first elected into public office when he was 26 years old. In early 1809, when he finished his second term as president, he was almost 66. He said, "I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty."

Jefferson served the cause of freedom and his country during his prime and for forty years. After which, he pursued science and natural history through research, experimentation, and invention, he continued in his post as the elected president of the American Philosophical Society until 1815, and he founded the University of Virginia. Jefferson designed all of its campus buildings, set up its curriculum, and selected its faculty. The University is notable in U.S. history for being the first educational institution to offer academic programs in disciplines such as astronomy, botany, and philosophy. Its School of Engineering and Applied Science was the first engineering school in the United States to be part of a comprehensive university. In the University of Virginia, Jefferson implemented his vision that education should be completely separate from religious doctrine.

The most touching is when Jefferson became a nail-maker: "On returning home after an absence of ten years, I found my farms so much deranged that I saw evidently they would be a burden to me instead of a support till I could regenerate them; & consequently that it was necessary for me to find some other resource in the meantime."

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl112.htm