Quote of the day–Thomas Jefferson

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.


Thomas Jefferson
[One might reasonably conclude that the bailout of the automobile and banking industries is evidence that this principle has been forgotten in the years since Jefferson help found this nations government. But then what do I know? I’m not the constitutional law professor who actually respects the constitution like President Obama.–Joe


Update October 28, 2012: This is a bogus quote. Thoreau said essentially this if you want to quote someone famous on this topic.]

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6 thoughts on “Quote of the day–Thomas Jefferson

  1. because its people discipline themselves There’s your problem right there. Our population has stopped disciplining themselves and begun to turn more and more to the government to provide that discipline for them.

    Of course, this is a problem in and of itself when the government is made up of politicians and regulators who simply cater to the whines of their loudest constituents and decline to be disciplined in their governance. In a governemnt of the people and by the people, if the people are undisciplined, what can be expected of the resulting government?

  2. With Constitutional law professor friends like O’dumbo, who needs enemies??

  3. azreel, One could argue it’s a chicken and the egg problem. If the government were to stop regulating things so much the people would take more responsibility.

    But you are right politicians that carter to the desires of their constituents regardless of the constitutional authority granted to the government are those that will get elected and mess up the proper function of government.

  4. As a lawyer, Obama views the Constitution the same way that a shyster (not all lawyers are unethical crooks) views any other contract; something in which to search for loopholes.

  5. I definitely think yo uwould be right about people eventually taking more responsibility, Joe, but I think things might be… interesting… for a while once the government stopped regulating. Folks like you and the rest of the pro-independence/pro-rights crowd certainly would have no problems, but the rest of the population… Yeah, “interesting” works.

    (Also, the “remember me” checkbox does not appear to be working, and the only cookie I am blocking is from Blogrolling.)

  6. As much as I would like to get back to the proper constitutionally limited government as quickly as possible I realize that isn’t practical. Just laying off 90% of the Federal employees and scrapping 95% of the laws in one fell swoop would be more than “interesting”.

    My game plan would be to have a timetable to scale back on various things over a three year (within one presidental election cycle) timeline. For example something like 1/3 of the ATF would be laid off each year with private industry pick up the functions (and probably some of the people) that are a benefit to society. The plan would be published months in advance and private industry would ramp up as needed to take up the slack.

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