We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Well, now, and there's - for every dollar the federal government spends, there's real people on the other side, and so when we talk about reductions that are going to affect providers, that's going to affect hospitals and doctors and others.
We are shrinking the size of the federal government as a percent of our economy from over 21 percent of the economy to 19 percent of the economy. At the same time, we're growing the private economy.
I believe that the Framers of the Constitution made their intent clear when they wrote the First Amendment. I believe they wanted to keep the new government from endorsing one religion over another, not erase the public consciousness or common faith.
Instead, there were a variety of controls of which some could be influenced by bankers, some could be influenced by the government, and some could hardly be influenced by either.
In addition to their power over government based on government financing and personal influence, bankers could steer governments in ways they wished them to go by other pressures.
I think that when we look out with our underfunded liabilities and our national debt over $14 trillion, I think if we are part of that movement to get our government spending under control, I think that would be a tremendous legacy to leave.
I think the Tea Party movement is great. I think anybody who has been frustrated over the last few years with the Republicans and Democrats, when they were trying to grow government and have spending and we weren't focusing on creating jobs and get our private sector growing again, I think that's when people started to wake up.
Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us.
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves.
We don't need a weakened government but a strong government that would take responsibility for the rights of the individual and care for the society as a whole.
