Dissent

Been reading some political blogs on the right and left today. As usual, am pissed off at both sides.

I can't claim to have researched any of these quotations. That credit belongs to the link above. But I have been trying to find in particular the second quote from Theodore Roosevelt which I think more people should keep in mind. Particularly since it is coming from a revered Republican president.

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from the government.
- Thomas Paine

"A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution".
-- President James Madison

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither."
- Ben Franklin

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
- Samuel Adams

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."
- President Abraham Lincoln

"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce and brave man, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
- 'Mark Twain'

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President."
- President Theodore Roosevelt

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
- President Theodore Roosevelt, 1912

"I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."
- James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

"So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy."
- Roger Baldwin

"Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion."
- Oscar Wilde

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
- George Bernard Shaw

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
- Dr. Martin Luther King

"Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph."
- Haile Selassie

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
- Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Perfect Definition of Intelligent Design

I'm Too Dumb To Figure It Out So It Must Be God.

For more on this see Creationism's Trojan Horse:
The Wedge of Intelligent Design

What's up with me

Well, here is what is going on.

Besides slowly moving into the apartment I have been paying rent on since July (but not living in), job hunting, and dealing with all of the normal every day things I need to do, I've been dealing with the reaccurance of my Mother's cancer, and getting her to and from Boston for all of the scans and doctor's appointments she needs. Between that, and not having a computer that really wanted to stay operational, time to spend thinking, writing and blogging has been few and far between.

However, I'm hoping once I have a refrigerator, and I get Debian Linux installed on my old clunker computer, I can start spending more time here just writing things out.

I have to say, I'm very impressed with two of blogs listed on "Blogs I Read". 'Mimi in New York' in particular amazes me. I don't always agree with every decision she makes, or her point of view, but she never fails to force me to look at things from a different perspective. I think she is an amazing writer. Her book is going to be a show stopper when it finally is done and published.

'Girl with a One Track Mind' turns everything on its head as far as what nutter like me with an ultra-conservative Mid-Western almost Bible-Belt-small-town-small-minds background tends to think about women and sex. She pulls no punches on herself, the men (and women) who become part of her exploits, and what she sees about others and sex.

Interesting that both of these women are British.

Anyway, this much neglected blog will probably be neglected further, but at some point it will be called back from the dead, or at least comatose, and put back into play. There is a lot I want to write about, and it is obvious I need the practice. So why not make use of it, eh?

In the mean time, go hit that "Next Blog" thingy up at the top right, and see what else comes up. Amazing what you find out there.