SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer! Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.----Thomas Payne(exerpt from "common sense" 1776

 http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/commonsense/text.html

Mistranslations occur in every writing due to the failings of man, not due to the failings of what was written.

Ever hear of someone totally messing up a recipe from the Betty Crocker Recipe Book? Does that make the book useless, or the ignoramus that mistranslated the recipe that was in it???- Rev. RB aka Troll Magnet
GOLO member since July 2, 2007

"I strive not for perfection, but instead for excellence. Excellence CAN BE achieved. Perfection, is God's business."----Michael J. Fox

Remorse is a much healtier response than guilt. Through remorse you can assess your mistakes and do better in the future, while guilt is only a heavy load which slows you down and gets you stumped, thus leading you to making more mistakes of the same nature. Sandra Carrington-Smith

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.
Epictetus

Historian and moralist Lord Acton wrote a letter in 1887 to Bishop Mandell Creighton to express an observation and opinion he had made about politicians. He wrote, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

“Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry?
Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die?
Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand?
Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you DAMNED?” - Leonard Ravenhill

You cannot be truly loyal unless you have the opportunity to be disloyal.

Remember your past, but do not DWELL on it. People who are constantly looking back have no idea where they are going.

Two monolouges DO NOT make a dialouge! quoted by: Jeff Daly - Chief Designer of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"Democracy is the road to socialism." - - KARL MARX.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke, 1795

Addendum to the above:

It is also essential that good men and women not be educated and propagandized into believing that real evil is a myth, and that all malevolent behavior is merely the result of a broken family's, or a failed society's short comings, amenable to cure by counseling and the application of new economic theroy. - Dean Koontz, 2008

As quoted by his character Odd Thomas in the book "Odd Hours".

Anyone desperate enough for suicide... should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try."
-- Richard Bach

"If you're gonna shoot, SHOOT! Leave the bluffing for the card table!- quoted by Mario Van Peebles in the movie Posse.

Don't be so open-minded that your brain falls out!

I think you way over estimate the ability of the Gov,. to screen all the calls, email etc out there. America has way to many idiots for the FBI to keep up with!------------haggis basher

TRADITION
Just because you've always done it that way, doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid.

"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies.
If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees.
Let no one GO there UNWARNED and UNPRAYED for." - Charles Spurgeon

favorite music: contemporary christian and 80's rock

favorite movies: too many to name.

favorite hobbies: target shooting

favorite tv shows: primeval (on bbca)

favorite restaurants: carrabas