Fear and Ignorance

Those are the only two "tactics" I have ever seen whipped out as a defense against liberty.

And, boy, did my most recent Liberty Lines column bring both fear and ignorance out of people!

I will reply to this letter to the editor from poor Brandon (whoever he is...), but I haven't decided yet whether to do it in next month's Liberty Lines, or to just do it here on the blog. (added: here's my response) Either way I wanted y'all to see what I'm up against locally.

So, here ya go (from the State Line Tribune- April 17, 2014):

(Click to enlargenize)

Thomas Jefferson against the Constitution

Still think there's a "social contract" and the Constitution is binding on people who didn't sign it and were born long after its signers were all dead?

Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter, unendowed with will. The dead are not even things. The particles of matter which composed their bodies, make part now of the bodies of other animals, vegetables, or minerals, of a thousand forms. To what then are attached the rights and powers they held while in the form of men? A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Maj. John Cartwright, June 5, 1824 (source)

Of course, I adamantly disagree with his assertion that "a generation may bind itself", since that authority belongs only to individuals, not "the collective", but he can't be right about everything.

.