The Exercise of Vital Powers

Via Reason Hit & Run:
If Congress imposes economic sanctions on Iran as harshly as they have on businesses in the USA, we should crush them with no military force required.

Isn’t “anonymous” just a slicker way for people to push what’s in their political interests to establish, without having their biases and motives questioned?

Also an interesting take on annual performance reviews

(mistakenly posted at PP first)

“Christ didn’t tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it … The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other.” — Fred Thompson

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Democracy is a two-way street. The citizens have as much responsibility for our self government as the people we elect. - Senator Eric Johnson.

“The unfettered free market has been the most radically destructive force in American life in the last generation.” — Hillary Clinton on C-SPAN in 1996.

“The election of Hillary Clinton has been the most radically destructive force in American life in this generation.” — Chris Farris, San Jose Costa Rica, 2010

HT: The Club For Growth

“Yes, the two-party system would be more appealing if we didn’t have these two parties.” - Instapundit

Link

“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.

“That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” - Declaration of Independence

“[On this day] 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor… In recent years, however, I’ve come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history. Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government. Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.” —Ronald Reagan

“There is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend” — Former DC mayor Marion Barry

Hat tip: Volokh

As a political philosophy, the belief that “it is the job of government to widen the chance for development of individual personalities” is not merely lame and insulting, but dangerous. The endless widening and development of our personalities will require and legitimize the endless widening and development of our government. The threat goes beyond taxes, spending, borrowing and regulating that increase without limit. It culminates in a therapeutic nanny state that corrupts both its wardens and its wards. Convinced that they are intervening, constantly and pervasively, to assist the growth of people who would otherwise stagnate, the enlighteners don’t need coercion to enfold the people in a soft totalitarianism. The objects of this therapy, meanwhile, may grow accustomed to it, and ultimately prefer being cared for to being free; or conclude that being free has no value apart from being cared for.

An interesting opinion piece on why the Democrats continue to fail.

“One of the most important signs of the existence of a democracy is that when there is a knock at the door at 5 in the morning, one is completely certain that it is the milkman.” - Winston Churchill