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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Violent Hooligans

I was doing a quick scan of posts and news and saw some quoted material to which my reaction was, "What bunch of violent hooligans wrote that?" Here are some of the quotes:
"Unfortunately, nothing will preserve [liberty] but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”
“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Force and Blood! Yeesh!

Upon closer inspection, the quotes were from Patrick Henry, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson in an article by Bill Whittle.

The founding fathers of the United States were brilliant and innovative, but they certainly didn't shy away from violence, did they?

3 comments:

Hey Skipper said...

That is because they understood what so many people cannot take on board: pacifism is amoral.

At best.

Howard said...

Skipper,

You're so not PoMo, but that's good!

Harry Eagar said...

They had merciless savages (in Jefferson's words) in the backyard, which influenced their thinking, no doubt.

Franklin set up a private arsenal because the Quakers who ran the Commonwealth government refused to protect the frontier settlers.

The merciless savages, of course, viewed Franklin differently. From their point of view, the grasping whites were loose in the neighborhood.