The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
Speak2Truth
07-25-2011, 05:43 PM
The first taxpayer publication of the US Congress was the Bible, for use in schools, to instruct youth in morality. Our system of government only serves a moral, just people who hold Christian viewpoints such as "do unto others as you would have others do unto you" and "thou shalt not steal".
Jefferson believed in the true teachings of Jesus as the foundations for American morality - and he personally approved the establishment of an Episcopalean church to hold services inside the US Capitol building. He created the University of Virginia and ensured a Pastor ministered to the students every week to provide for their moral upbringing, for only moral people can responsibly guide our Republic and defend the Equal Rights of every American.
It's not mere "education" that must be funded. WHAT is taught is a critical criteria as well.
Today, schools are teaching youth to hate their own country, teaching that America "stole" the Southwest from Mexico (in total disregard for the purchase price), teaching Communist rather than American ideology...
The taxpayers should not be forced to pay for indoctrination designed to balkanize and destroy their own nation from the inside.
I'm confident Jefferson would de-fund the current system of public education in order to restore American principles in the classroom.
One of his first acts as President, by the way, was to eliminate all taxes on the individual in order to fund the government solely by trade tariffs. He was strongly against punishing Americans for laboring to prosper.
Speak2Truth
07-25-2011, 05:45 PM
If only today's politicians would pay attention to WHAT WORKS instead of seeking ways to bankrupt our nation.
"... Jefferson abolished all internal taxes, including the whiskey excise tax and the land tax. Meanwhile, the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, though a diplomatic minefield for American statesmen, proved a significant stimulus to the economy of the United States. Vigorous commerce enriched merchants while customs duties swelled the federal Treasury. By 1808 the national debt had been reduced from $80 million to $57 million, even though the Louisiana purchase had added an $11 million liability. By 1806, duties proved so lucrative that Gallatin and Jefferson fretted about what to do with the surplus above that required for debt retirement. Treasury reserves increased from $3 million to $14 million between 1801 and 1808."
Today's leftist "leaders" follow a different role model:
"The way to crush the middle class is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation." – Vladimir Lenin
"There is only one way to kill capitalism—by taxes, taxes, and more taxes." - Karl Marx
theindependenteye
07-25-2011, 09:24 PM
"The way to crush the middle class is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation." – Vladimir Lenin
"There is only one way to kill capitalism—by taxes, taxes, and more taxes." - Karl Marx
These sound remarkably manufactured. My apologies in advance if I'm mistaken. Does anyone have a citation for either of these, other than some wingnut blog?
-Conrad
Speak2Truth
07-26-2011, 12:19 AM
I'm seeing lots of references to it. It seems consistent with Karl's plans to collapse the existing system so he could restructure it under Communist (his) control.
Karl Marx was a lazy dirtbag who absolutely hated to work. He would not labor a day to feed his starving wife and daughters. Instead, he mooched off his friends (like Engels) and schemed up ways to get his hands on other people's stuff. The ideas of Socialism sprung from that.
I'm seeing lots of references to it. <... good enough for me!><br> It seems consistent with Karl's plans to collapse the existing system so he could restructure it under Communist (his) control.<.. even more convincing!>
Karl Marx was a lazy dirtbag who absolutely hated to work. <... what a worthless punk>
I suppose I'm glad to see some right-wing diatribes and "analysis" on a site heavily tilted toward left/liberal/socialist/progressive/whatever. But really, can't you try to step back and read what you've written with an eye toward how it looks to those who aren't yet true believers? Selfish of me, maybe - you can pick the audience you like - but there are some of us who find use of unsupported claims as fact weakens the whole argument. For example, the three lines I've excerpted above have no place in a rational argument; would you accept them if they were aimed at changing your mind about anything?
Speak2Truth
07-26-2011, 02:09 PM
I suppose I'm glad to see some right-wing diatribes and "analysis" on a site heavily tilted toward left/liberal/socialist/progressive/whatever. But really, can't you try to step back and read what you've written with an eye toward how it looks to those who aren't yet true believers? Selfish of me, maybe - you can pick the audience you like - but there are some of us who find use of unsupported claims as fact weakens the whole argument. For example, the three lines I've excerpted above have no place in a rational argument; would you accept them if they were aimed at changing your mind about anything?
I would certainly question those claims and their origins, with intellectual curiosity aimed toward learning whether they are valid. Thanks for pointing them out.
I'm presuming you actually looked up the Marx and Lenin quotes to verify that I did not just make them up on the spot. < good enough for me >
It seems consistent with Karl's plans to collapse the existing system so he could restructure it under Communist (his) control.
More on this: "Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and ... the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessary, ... a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew."
What is a revolution? A forcible change. To "overthrow" the existing system. Marx wrote "Capital" to show why the forcible overthrow of the existing system would be justified. Who would be in charge after the existing system is wrecked? The Revolutionary leader imposing his new system. Who is that? Remember, Karl HATED to work and was always mooching off others. His system put the product of everyone's labor into a common pool to be doled out by the guys in charge. Where was he trying to position himself? Think that through.
Karl Marx was a lazy dirtbag who absolutely hated to work.
Can you identify his means of gainful employment?
He begged others for handouts and complained that his mother in law would not tolerate his charging things to her accounts (he married up, like John Kerry, but was disappointed that the wealth did not flow down). Engels' letters to Marx nearly all contain a variation of the phrase "Enclosed is a post office order for five pounds". How did Karl's hatred of gainful employment affect his family? Letters from his wife give a clue.
"Let me describe only one day of this life, as it actually was... Since wet-nurses are exceedingly expensive here, I made up my mind, despite terrible pains in the breasts and the back, to nurse the baby myself. But the poor little angel drank in so much sorrow with the milk that he was continually fretting, in violent pain day and night. Since he has been in the world, he has not slept a single night through, at most two or three hours. Of late, there have been violent spasms, so that the child is continually betwixt life and death. When thus afflicted, he sucked so vigorously that my nipple became sore, and bled; often the blood streamed into his little mouth. One day I was sitting like this when our landlady suddenly appeared.... Since we could not pay this sum (of five pounds) instantly, two brokers came into the house, and took possession of all my belongings -- bedding, clothes, everything, even the baby's cradle and and the little girls' toys, so that the children wept bitterly. They threatened to take everything away in two hours. (Fortunately they did not.) If this had happened, I should have had to lie on the floor with my freezing children beside me...
Next day we had to leave. It was cold and rainy. My husband tried to find lodging, but as soon as he said he had four children no one would take us. At length a friend helped us. We paid what was owing, and I quickly sold all my beds and bedding in order to settle the accounts with the chemist, the baker and the milkman."
What kind of man refuses to work to care for his family while they suffer so?
A dirtbag.
One of his daughters later in life committed suicide having been thoroughly traumatized by her "father figure".