Food for thought...

Would you pay an income tax if it was optional?!?  Or would you prefer to select exactly where that money goes even if you chose to give it all away to charity or for commonwealth? 
[Can you tell we are working on our tax return today?]

This was the first question that popped into my mind after reading the following article about various forms of government and "leadership":  The Zero Sum Games by Stephen J. Heaney. 

Now I find myself wondering what our country would look like if our leadership elected to "inspire, not require" the people to live in accord with one another and help those in need.  Could that be the basis of a libertarian utopia?  Could such a concept actually flourish?  Were the founders of the United States of America thinking/hoping the same thing?

I recently saw an interview with Ron Paul on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in which Ron Paul stated that issues, such as abortion, have more to do with the morality of the people than with the laws. 

Have the laws worked to stop injustices?  How many people are currently in prison in this country?  How many of them are there due to intent to harm another person?

These questions led me on an internet search for a particular quote by Thomas Jefferson regarding the proper role of government.  As a result, I found several statements worth contemplation today (all by Thomas Jefferson):

"A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

“Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows us that as a government grows, liberty decreases.”

“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”

“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

“The Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of Constitutional power.”

“To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.”

“Experience has shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent they conquered.”

“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny.”

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”

“That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves. If we are directed from Washington (heads of an organization) when to sow and when to reap, we will soon want for bread.”

“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”

“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations...entangling alliances with none”

“The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills.”

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

“If the book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.”

Find more words of wisdom from Thomas Jefferson here.