The quote posted is from an Essay by James Madison in the National Gazette, March 27, 1792. Heres another passage from the essay, followed by the link to the entire essay.
That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.
The Indispensable Man and the Indispensable Right
By James Banakis, at John Kass News
Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which the government tells the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in whichPresident Reagan’s farewell address 1989.‘We the People tell the government what it is allowed to do. –
Who was the most indispensable American in our 248-year history? My choice, without question, is James Madison. Many would call Madison a slaveholding, white supremacist, and discount anything he wrote as out of touch with our 21st century values. The reality is his legacy and his vision is eternal.
In the years immediately after the revolution, our central government was adrift. Many of the founders wanted to create a monarchy, or have each state exist independently. Our constitution was primarily the creation of one man, Madison. The main body of the constitution is the blueprint for how our three branches of government operate independent of each other. His enduring concept created a strong but limited and self-policing government.
Madison’s true genius however was, The Bill of Rights: the first ten amendments. He understood how dangerous an unrestrained government could become. To protect the individual those first ten amendments are our sacred guarantees and protections against big government, despots, and repression. He wrote,
“The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.”
All our constitutional rights enumerated are uniquely American and absolute. There is no freedom of speech in Canada or Great Britain which grants free speech to Parliament, but not the public. Today people in those countries are being imprisoned for speech someone in power took offense to. In Scotland, you can now be imprisoned for misgendering someone. For at least the past 12 years, our constitution and more specifically the Bill of Rights have been under attack from the new Progressives. They especially dislike the first two amendments.
There is a lot of good information in this piece. You may want to read the whole thing.
The First Amendment Is On the Ballot
On Tuesday, Ace wrote a detailed post on censorship. At the end of the post is a video showing Kamala Harris determined to censor social media (with others including law enforcement, "as a community"?). Scary. Imagine "Community Notes" on "X" based on feelings instead of facts. Or maybe you could imagine being arrested for something deemed offensive which you posted on social media, as now happens in the UK.
Kamala Harris hasn't often seemed this combative since starting the "JOY" phase of her campaign. I don't expect that the "JOY" would last if she were elected President.
Partway into Ace's post (below the Jive Turkey), you can also find an excerpt and link, to which Ace reported a rather unusual personal reaction:
Matt Taibbi delivered an absolute barnburner of a speech on the Government-Censorship Complex.
Ace's entire post is worth a bookmark. Perhaps you might like to re-read it. Or read Taibbi's speech, which had such a remarkable effect on Ace.
But we're coming up on the election, and I ran across some encouragement from Taibbi's older friend Walter Kirn for the weekend, on the related topic of free speech:
The 1st Amendment is on the ballot
My right to post that "The 1st Amendment is on the ballot" is on the ballot
And so is your right to read this
1 or 0
1 or 0
Choose
Pass it on.
The tweet above came shortly after this one. You might see a couple of names you recognize in the replies. People in the "free speech coalition" are not all "Ultra-Maga Rethuglicans". And most of them - even people whose style is not provocative, like Walter Kirn - have paid a price for taking a stand:
I've done all I could this year, and perhaps more than I should have, to clarify the issues before us and characterize the nature of our moment. I didn't do it for the money, and there hasn't been any. In fact, I lost some. Happily. My personal American dream involved becoming a writer and an artist, see, and expressing myself as well as I knew how and as freely as I dared. This year, for the first time in my life, I saw that the opportunity to chase this dream was gravely, gravely threatened, not just for me but for the kids and young people who are much like I was once, an odd little kid who was trying to find his voice. To keep this great road of possibility open seemed to me the highest mission I could assign myself. I did. It's been an adventure. And such a pleasure.
But now it's time for words to turn to action. It's time for us to protect what we hold dear. For me it is our right to speak, think, and create freely, without fear, or at least without fear from the authorities and the moneyed interests and powers that lie behind them.
I hope I've made a difference in this cause. I hope I've convinced some others to join me in it. And to act accordingly, democratically, as is our right and duty.
Random Observations
Matt Taibbi notes that Kamala Harris did convince at least one person that she was tough by agreeing to an interview on Fox News:
Remember that Tim Walz' education appointee in Minnesota isn't content to overthrow the First Amendment, he wants to overthrow the USA.
Music
Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.
This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.
Last week's thread, October 12, Renaissance People
Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.
Nice response from a lurker:
I greatly enjoyed your post on renaissance people and I wanted to write in about the best example I know of, my father.
My dad hated school, barely got through his senior year of highschool, and started working for the phone company in D.C. rather than go to university. There he learned the basics of electric work and met my mom. Her brother taught him carpentry, masonry, bricklaying, and framing, as well as fine tool work. While Mom finished up her degree in pre-columbian mesoamerican history (yeah yeah I know), and was working her way up to VP level in a mortgage bank, Dad pre-read and highlighted all her textbooks and started learning to love learning again. When mom quit her job to raise us kids, Dad went back to school to get a teaching degree (and then a masters in education), teaching history, culture, economics, politics, game theory, Shakespeare, and the development of western art to 6-12th graders over 20+ years. Meanwhile, he taught himself theology, philosophy, plumbing, tile work, duct work, spot welding, forging, candle making, stained-glass, took apart computers to replace batteries and motherboards, automotive repair, along with shooting, golf, bowling, baseball, archery, swimming, and tai chi. Any friend who had any skill usually ended up with my dad as a student.
Dad is the man people in my church come to when they need help with something. There are very, VERY, few problems he can’t solve (mostly because he hasn’t bought that particular tool…yet) But most important of all, he passes on what he’s learned. I can cook the mother sauces and frame out a wall and change the oil in my car and read Chaucer and homeschool my sons because my father taught me to do all those things.
The internet (especially the amateur specialists of YouTube) is a gift to men like my dad. There is ALWAYS something new to learn, some new skill to sharpen. I hope to grow my own skill set to maybe match a tenth of my dad’s.
Anywho, thanks for letting this lurker prattle on a little bit. Greatly enjoy all the weekend threads, please keep up the good work.
I hope your week is blessed and peaceful.
We have a great community out there. I can think of some who may be having a particularly fine time today.