Poke! Poke! Poke! Someone somewhere is always poking the patriot community and maybe because I am a common sense kind of person I just can't figure out why. Patriot by definition is someone who loves their country and will stand to protect it with all they have even to their lives. Now common sense would tell me that is the kind of person that a government would like to have as a citizen, wouldn't it? Well apparently not here in the United States. Here patriots are labeled as crazies, blood thirsty gun lovers and domestic terrorists. I consider myself an American Patriot and I can assure you I am none of those even though I am sure I have been referred to as slightly odd at times, certainly a gun owner and the only thing I terrorize are skunks and racoons when they attack my garden! My allegiance is not to a government but to a country built upon an ideal so different from any other in history that there is no comparison. A person that blindly follows a government is not a patriot but just a pawn. Being a true American Patriot takes critical thinking, common sense, morality, work ethic and courage. I only dream of being the fraction of the patriot our founding fathers were.
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who comes near that precious jewel. Unfortunately, nothing
will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined. ”
will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined. ”
“The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”
“For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
“Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings - give us that precious jewel and you may take everything else!”
As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, December 23, 1791
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, December 19, 1776
If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute.
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791
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 calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson