Rob and Company would say they don't know what they are, and don't need them.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Speech

Democratic National Convention (June 27, 1936)

Senator Robinson, Members of the Democratic Convention, my friends:

Here, and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the Nation. It is an occasion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression of an attitude toward problems, the determination of which will profoundly affect America.

I come not only as a leader of a party, not only as a candidate for high office, but as one upon whom many critical hours have imposed and still impose a grave responsibility.

For the sympathy, help and confidence with which Americans have sustained me in my task I am grateful. For their loyalty I salute the members of our great party, in and out of political life in every part of the Union. I salute those of other parties, especially those in the Congress of the United States who on so many occasions have put partisanship aside. I thank the Governors of the several States, their Legislatures, their State and local officials who participated unselfishly and regardless of party in our efforts to achieve recovery and destroy abuses. Above all I thank the millions of Americans who have borne disaster bravely and have dared to smile through the storm.

America will not forget these recent years, will not forget that the rescue was not a mere party task. It was the concern of all of us. In our strength we rose together, rallied our energies together, applied the old rules of common sense, and together survived.

In those days we feared fear. That was why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.

Seems the libs are trying to take the most important ones away. You know, the first 10 amendments to the constitution. If you look real fast, the Brady broad is trying her damest to lock up the 2nd.

But I cannot, with candor, tell you that all is well with the world. Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy indeed a fullness of life greater than that of most Nations. But the rush of modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulties, new problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United States the political and economic freedom for which Washington and Jefferson planned and fought.

Philadelphia is a good city in which to write American history. This is fitting ground on which to reaffirm the faith of our fathers; to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom; to give to 1936 as the founders gave to 1776-an American way of life.

That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy-from the eighteenth century royalists who held special privileges from the crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed; that they denied the right of free assembly and free speech; that they restricted the worship of God; that they put the average man's property and the average man's life in pawn to the mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented the people.

And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought. That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man, who won the right with his neighbors to make and order his own destiny through his own Government. Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

Since that struggle, however, man's inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people.. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution-all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain free.

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital-all undreamed of by the fathers-the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small business men and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor-these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small business man, the investments set aside for old age-other people's money-these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.

Throughout the Nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

An old English judge once said: "Necessitous men are not free men." Liberty requires opportunity to make a living-a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor-other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the Flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

The brave and clear platform adopted by this Convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that Government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.

But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them.

For more than three years we have fought for them. This Convention, in every word and deed, has pledged that that fight will go on.

The defeats and victories of these years have given to us as a people a new understanding of our Government and of ourselves. Never since the early days of the New England town meeting have the affairs of Government been so widely discussed and so clearly appreciated. It has been brought home to us that the only effective guide for the safety of this most worldly of worlds, the greatest guide of all, is moral principle.

We do not see faith, hope and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a Nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.

Faith- in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.

Hope-renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.

Charity- in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.

We seek not merely to make Government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity.

We are poor indeed if this Nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.

In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.

It is a sobering thing, my friends, to be a servant of this great cause. We try in our daily work to remember that the cause belongs not to us, but to the people. The standard is not in the hands of you and me alone. It is carried by America. We seek daily to profit from experience, to learn to do better as our task proceeds.

Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales.

Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

In this world of ours in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.

I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.

I accept the commission you have tendered me. I join with you. I am enlisted for the duration of the war.

He must have been some sort of commie or something. No gun totin, liberal hatin troo amerkun would ever say sissy stuff like this, huh GWB? It's better we remain a country divided. Forget that "let's get along and work together" stuff...

Seems the libs are trying to take the most important ones away. You know, the first 10 amendments to the constitution. If you look real fast, the Brady broad is trying her damest to lock up the 2nd.

Posted by Sniper at 2008-03-28 04:55 PM

Those who are trying to take our 2nd amendment rights away

I don't think taking them away is correct but some clarification on that one is well past due if you ask me.

It doesn't imply that I have the right to own a fully automated weapon does it?

Sawed Off Shotgun?

Some clarification to amendment is A-OK with me.

It doesn't imply that I have the right to own a fully automated weapon does it?

Sawed Off Shotgun?

Some clarification to amendment is A-OK with me.

Posted by Manypaths at 2008-03-28 05:26 PM

The 2nd amendment does not grant the right to own firearms, it keeps the govenment from restricting the ownership of guns.

The right to own arms, pre-existed the constitution, the federalists wanted the 2nd amendment to be sure the governement wouldn't come after their guns. They didn't trust the government.

Roy,
I am asking this honestly...
When the 2nd amendment talks about a ready militia, what exactly does that mean?
I don't own firearms but I don't care if you do. I've just never been clear on that part of the amendment.

Roy,
I am asking this honestly...
When the 2nd amendment talks about a ready militia, what exactly does that mean?
I don't own firearms but I don't care if you do. I've just never been clear on that part of the amendment.
Posted by evilpolock


The Founding Fathers saw what kinds of things happened to the people in Old Country when the people were not allowed to have weapons. They didn't want the USA to be like the Old Country.

The Founding Fathers saw what kinds of things happened to the people in Old Country when the people were not allowed to have weapons. They didn't want the USA to be like the Old Country.


Posted by MrFair at 2008-03-28 06:10 PM | Reply |

Haven't times change enough between the Founding Fathers and 2008 to require a revision to the 2nd?

If the objective was to avoid a situation where the gov't is armed and constituents aren't, it's a moot point is it not? I can hardly see u.s. citizens standing up to the government's military.

"I can hardly see u.s. citizens standing up to the government's military.

Posted by panchovilla at 2008-03-28 06:29 PM"

Yeah, that would be like a bunch of citizens armed with AK-47's standing up to the U.S. military! What? They are?? In Iraq? Oh, nevermind...

"The real truth about Liberty. This book takes a wrecking ball to the political establishment. Senator Goldwater would have loved it--it's The Conscience of a Conservative for the 21st century."
--Barry M. Goldwater, Jr., former member of Congress


This much is true: you have been lied to, robbed, and used by your own government--the people you elected into office and the people you should be able to trust. The government is expanding, taxes are increasing, inflation is ballooning, and our basic freedoms are disappearing. Enough is enough. It is time for a revolution.

The Founding Fathers didn't want any of this. In fact, they said so quite clearly in the Constitution of the United States of America. Unfortunately, that beautiful, ingenious, and revolutionary document is being ignored more and more in Washington. If we are to enjoy peace, freedom, and prosperity once again, we absolutely must return to the principles upon which America was founded. But finally, there is hope ...

In a nation thirsty for change, THE REVOLUTION: A Manifesto (Grand Central Publishing Hardcover; April 30, 2008; $21.00; 0-446-53751-3) is Ron Paul's call to arms. Moving from topic to topic at a quick pace, Ron Paul cuts through all of the political nonsense that has overwhelmed our country and gets to the small, precious core of what America was founded upon.

Despite a media blackout, presidential candidate Ron Paul sparked a movement whose enthusiasm and dedication have amazed veteran political observers. The 72-year-old physician-turned-congressman has a legion of young, dedicated supporters that would make anyone in politics envious. Candidates across America are already running as "Ron Paul Republicans."

Why? Because someone in government is finally telling the truth about the economy, terrorism, foreign policy, the war on drugs, the housing bubble, the Federal Reserve, civil liberties, and everything else in between. Instead of swooning before Federal Reserve chairmen, he grills them. With a financial crisis looming, the housing bubble bursting, and the dollar collapsing, Ron Paul has the answers to questions that few even dare to ask.

There is no doubt that Ron Paul has become the enchanter of the disenchanted-- many regard him as the country's only honest politician. Creator of one of the largest grassroots campaigns in history, Paul challenges America to make the tough changes needed to survive. "Dr. Paul cured my apathy," says a popular campaign sign. THE REVOLUTION may cure yours as well.

About the Author
Ron Paul, a ten-term congressman from Texas, is the leading advocate of freedom in our nation's capital. He has devoted his political career to the defense of individual liberty, sound money, and a noninterventionist foreign policy. Judge Andrew Napolitano calls him "The Thomas Jefferson of our day."

After serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s, Dr. Paul moved to Texas to begin a civilian medical practice, delivering over four thousand babies in his career as an obstetrician. He served in Congress from 1976 to 1984, and again from 1996 to the present. He and Carol Paul, his wife of fifty-one years, have five children, eighteen grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Ron Paul, the New York Post, once wrote, is a politician who "cannot be bought by special interests."

"There are few people in public life who, through thick and thin, rain or shine, stick to their principles," added a congressional colleague. "Ron Paul is one of those few."

Ron Paul rocks!

Sincerely,
David Duke

You're NULLandVOID

I can't wait until tony aroma shows up to tell me how much of a racist ron paul is through one side of his mouth and then tell me how great of a guy and how misunderstood jerimiah wright is.

ain't it funny that once everyone else dropped out of the race, john mccain became the only candidate? Except that Ron Paul is still there...

You can't say he wasn't or isn't a serious candidate when the media have just chosen not to give him time.

In those days we feared fear. That was why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.


Posted by Manypaths at 2008-03


so I went right to the end so maybe you can tell me.
where can I go to find out where this liberal patron saint said it was okay to round up a bunch of AMERICANS and put them behind fences just because their eyes happened to be slanted?
just wondering.

Radio: Has Anyone Seen Our Civil Liberties?

Mao: I exercise my civil liberties every day.

With very little problem or sense of persecution.

As do most Americans.

And that goes a long ways towards explaining why certain hyper-anxious and obnoxiously shrill ass-fucks like the authors of the above headline have such a frustratingly difficult time being taken seriously.

A much more interesting radio program, in my opinion, would be centered around highlighting the irony of using a chickenshit, unregulated internet radio program as a soap-box for issuing dire and apocalyptic warnings about the erosion of our civil liberties.

But that's just my opinion.

I'm not a big-time radio producer or anything.

"As do most Americans."

Well then! There can't be a problem.

you state you dont see many americians standing up to the US gov in this country, and should we change the 2nd to better fit the 2008 times. well I spect that only the 10 to 15 % about the same as fought in the revolution would secure the feedom again for the spineless masses once more. should we change the 2nd only if the mind set is of laying down and letting the goverment run over the top of us for a great peice of reading might i suggest Patrick Henry's speach the war inevetibale march 17,1776. either you get it or you dont. that simple. viva la anarchy!!!!long live the revolution.

Well then! There can't be a problem.

Of course not.

What was I thinking.

Everyone should know that the scattered, individual splatters of the collective left wing shit stain are the vanguards of our libertarian consciousness.

Most Americans should strive to be as wise and perceptive as they.

So long as they're willing to donate a substantial amount of their income to the State.

PINCHE

Your 'conservative' asswipes doubled the size of the federal budget in only 6 years.

I don't really know WHAT you are except a pissed off kid with pockets full of dogma.

YOUR hero was willing to borrow all he's spent and double the national debt without asking asswipes like you to pay for the war or anything else.

You're the gullible buffoon

George Bush has done more damage to America by shredding the Constitution than any terrorists could possibly do even in their darkest dreams.

From a campaign of lies and intimidation to allow an illegal, immoral unjust war, to torture in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and at black sites around the world he has ground away at the Constitutional ideals that America is supposed to stand for.

From politicising the DOJ and spying on citizens and denying habeus corpus to massive data mining operations to privatising soldiers to telling FISA to fuck off, he has done some really dumb and dangerous things.

Outing NOC spies and taking guns away from citizens post Katrina?

Creating "free speech zones" to prevent real free speech from occuring. Loyalty oaths signees only at his "public" events, hiring folk in the media to propagandise his positions?

So much FAIL.

He should be impeached and in jail but the system is so corrupt and overly cozy that it just aint gonna happen.

And Maoser and the rest of the collective reich wing walking shitstains kowtow to their new overlord and teabag him upon request and then try and tell the rest of us that we should do the same.

Sorry, Pinchaloaf, but worshipping at the altar of raw power and becoming Mammon's biatch just aint in the cards for folk on the left.

Only cowardly chickenhawks like yerself hold such loathesome views.

Some folk still see the value of liberty and the danger of capitulating to fear in a vain attempt to achieve an impossible level of security.

Spud fer one.

Be Well.

"I can hardly see u.s. citizens standing up to the government's military.

Posted by panchovilla

With a handle like Panchovilla I'm suprised you would say that. Do you think it would be so hard to get even half of the US military to revolt. When the time comes a leader or a group of leaders will arise and the american people will choose sides. It's not like we don't have a history of it.

George Bush has done more damage to America by shredding the Constitution than any terrorists could possibly do even in their darkest dreams.


and thus the 'sprouting' of spudsfrucker starts off my morning......"sprouting"
......get it ....get it......BUt let me "peel" this off for you.....OH OH....thats another good one..

here the leftists go again. telling us that bush is worse than terrorists...and they just dont understand why they are on the outside looking in.
such rhetoric does nothing but spur us on and give us the confidence that the american voter will once again tell you and your ilk that you are full of shit.
thank you
thank you

AND I see that my question is met with the expected silence. the same socialist who call for the impeachment of bush are the same ones who are silent on this important part of the FDR administration. this patron saint of liberalism who gave us the new deal....how did that work out anyway??.....
so why no comment? thats easy. they dont want to admit that there was any president before bush..well except for that guy who likes the pudgy interns.

"George Bush has done more damage to America by shredding the Constitution than any terrorists could possibly do even in their darkest dreams".

Ironicly there is a lot of truth in this statment. But it's just Bush. It's every one in Washington today and for along time past. The people on the inside can do a lot more damage than the people on the outside.

"...they dont want to admit that there was any president before bush..well except for that guy who likes the pudgy interns."

Well, figure it out. That "pudgy intern guy" is the only democrat they have managed to elect since 1976. They can't remember any futher back than that. Hell, the "pudgy intern guy" is the ONLY democrat to be REelected since FDR in 1940. The really telling part is that he needed Ross Perot to be elected at all!
Do you think those facts should give them a clue?
Nawwwww...they want to screech about stolen elections, Diebold machines etc. They can't possibly imagine that their leftist-socialist candidates really suck. That's not to say that the last couple of republican candidates have been so hot either.

PINCHE

Your 'conservative' asswipes doubled the size of the federal budget in only 6 years.

I don't really know WHAT you are except a pissed off kid with pockets full of dogma.

YOUR hero was willing to borrow all he's spent and double the national debt without asking asswipes like you to pay for the war or anything else.

You're the gullible buffoon

Seems to me like the presented point of contention was the inherent irony in bitching about an "erosion" of civil liberties from the platform of a cheesedick internet radio program with zero restrictions on what is said during that program.

Your only response to that is handful of cliches and hyperbole about "Bush" and "the national debt", flung wildly in my direction with your limber little wrist.

Point 1.)

Pointing out the sheer fucking asininity and intellectual bankruptcy of people who "think" as you do is not the equivalent of a Letter of Recommendation for Bush. Bush has spent a tremendous amount of treasury for a variety of reasons---all of which are fair game for debate and discussion.

But that has little or nothing to do with how incandescently fucking stupid and shrill the people who populate the left-wing blogosphere have become---as they shriek their silly little epithets about "Nazis" and "fascists" of their elected government taking their civil liberties away.

It's amazing how a consequence-free blogging environment can fuel such a fake fucking outrage regarding a variety of boogey-men---including that scary "police state" we're living in.

Point 2.)

I don't really know WHAT you are except a pissed off kid with pockets full of dogma.

You haven't demonstrated that you have the intellectual ammunition or the discipline in your argumentation to be referring to others as "pissed-off kids".

Furthermore, "dogma" refers to a strictly adhered-to doctrine, no matter the information on the table.

An example of dogmatism would be constantly and automatically defaulting to your grievances with a particular politician as a rejoinder to those who highlight your irrational, left-wing whining.

Conversion-Van Liberal: Two plus two equals seven

Mao: No, Conversion-Van Liberal, two plus two equal five.

Conversion-Van Liberal: Oh yeah? Well your HERO Bush wrecked our economy by forcing us to war under false pretenses and then he cut taxes and poisoned the environment and and and then he did something else and was mean to a puppy once.

So there. Two plus two DOES equal seven. Nyah!

And quit being angry and dogmatic.

I imagine I've got little better idea as to what freedom is than some paranoid, conspiracy-minded urchin in New Jersey does.

I can hardly see u.s. citizens standing up to the government's military.
Posted by panchovilla


Pancho this is because you are Canadian.