THE FOUNDATION: TAXATION

“Excessive taxation… will carry reason and reflection to every man’s door, and particularly in the hour of election.” —Thomas Jefferson

INSIGHT

“It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.” —Adam Smith

GOVERNMENT

“Some Americans devoted to free enterprise and lower taxes actually push policies and lead lives that push this country toward big government. Leftists who want a centralization of power bear sizeable responsibility for governmental growth. But conservatives who don’t understand the importance of religious and community institutions are also part of the problem. That’s because a majority of Americans want to do something through common action to help those who are needy. That something can be either governmental, in which case tax bills and government bulk up, or it can be through religious and community institutions, in which case government can shrink. We should not complain about the taxes that fuel governmental action if we neglect volunteer work outside of government. The politics of this are simple: If Americans have a choice between big government and small government, and if Americans think big government helps the poor and small government doesn’t, a crucial mass will often vote for big government. If Americans think the only way to work together on social problems is through government, most will prefer government to giving up.” —Marvin Olasky

THE GIPPER

“There is a new term being used in Washington these days, tax expenditures. If you and I used that term we would be talking about things upon which the government spent our tax dollars. That, however, is not what government means. Tax expenditures is the new name government has for the share of our earnings it allows us to keep. You and I call them deductions.” —Ronald Reagan

FAMILY

“[D]espite their ringing perorations on gender equality, many of the [Equal Rights Amendment’s] supporters are pursuing a much broader, pernicious agenda. In an effort to force the restructuring of American society at a fundamental level, they’re seeking to use the heavy hand of government to eradicate even natural, wholesome and appropriate distinctions between the sexes. Indeed, many amendment supporters are loath to admit that even the most obvious differences exist, or that they’re worthy of recognition. At the moment, the newly revived Equal Rights Amendment—now renamed the Women’s Equality Amendment—has 194 House cosponsors, with 10 in the Senate. Unlike its hoary predecessor, it contains no deadline for ratification. It will be interesting to see whether feminists will succeed in their newest efforts to impose unnecessary and largely unwanted gender-equity measures on the rest of the country or whether Americans will drive a stake through the heart of the ERA once and for all, rejecting it as a bad idea whose time will never come.” —Carol Platt Liebau

CULTURE

“Renowned metallurgist Rosie O’Donnell proclaimed on TV last Thursday that Sept. 11, 2001, was a more significant date than most of us realized. It was, in her words, ‘the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel.’ This, of course, came as news to steelworkers, blacksmiths, firefighters, manufacturers of samurai swords, and other fools who hadn’t realized that steel is forged in magic furnaces using dragon breath and pixie dust…O’Donnell focused on World Trade Center Building 7, which has become the grassy knoll for 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Asked if the government was responsible for its collapse, she coyly replied that she didn’t know. All she knows is that it’s ‘impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved’ and that, for the ‘first time in history, steel was melted by fire.’ Wink, wink. For the record, fire can melt steel, and buildings also collapse when heat weakens steel. But that misses the point. The point is we shouldn’t have to argue with crazy people. Regardless, it appears that not even the heat of ridicule can weaken O’Donnell’s steely resolve to make an idiot of herself.” —Jonah Goldberg

LIBERTY

“Just last week, I was arguing the [illegal immigration] issue with a friend. I pointed out that every other country in the world guards its borders, and that definitely includes Mexico, which protects its own southern border while violating our own on a daily basis. He said he didn’t care what other countries did. He believed that America, being America, should have a welcome mat out for anyone who wants to enter. He didn’t want to slam the door in the face of poor people. I told him he was a hypocrite. After all, I knew for a fact that he had locks on the windows and doors of his home. Why shouldn’t poor people be allowed to enter his dwelling and set up housekeeping in his living room?” —Bert Prelutsky

OPINION IN BRIEF

“Thought experiment: Bring in a completely neutral observer—a Martian—and point out to him that the United States is involved in two hot wars against radical Islamic insurgents. One is in Afghanistan, a geographically marginal backwater with no resources and no industrial or technological infrastructure. The other is in Iraq, one of the three principal Arab states, with untold oil wealth, an educated population, an advanced military and technological infrastructure that, though suffering decay in the later years of Saddam Hussein’s rule, could easily be revived if it falls into the right (i.e., wrong) hands. Add to that the fact that its strategic location would give its rulers inordinate influence over the entire Persian Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf states. Then ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question.” —Charles Krauthammer

RE: THE LEFT

“If anyone was under the impression that congressional Democrats actually considered their actions with regard to the ‘troop withdrawal bills’ —beyond achieving victory over the Bush Administration—they would be playing the part of the uninformed, Kool-Aid drinking fool. While Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of their anti-war, pro-genocide, hate-Bush contingent revel in the fact that they have succeeded in passing a bill that opposes the President, al-Qa’ida operatives in Iraq are preparing to set their alarm clocks for ‘half-past redeployment’ so the slaughter of those who braved Iraq’s polling places can begin.” —Frank Salvato

POLITICAL FUTURES

“Until Nancy Pelosi came along, it was understood by all that we had only one president at a time and—like him or not—he alone had the Constitutional authority to speak for this country to foreign nations, especially in wartime. All that Pelosi’s trip [to Syria] can accomplish is to advertise American disunity to a terrorist-sponsoring nation in the Middle East while we are in a war there. That in turn can only embolden the Syrians to exploit the lack of unified resolve in Washington by stepping up their efforts to destabilize Iraq and the Middle East in general… Once it becomes accepted that it is all right to violate both the laws and the traditions of this nation, and to undermine the ability of the United States to speak to other nations of the world with one voice, we will have taken another fateful step downward into the degeneration of this society. Such a drastic and irresponsible step should remove any lingering doubt that the Democrats’ political strategy is to ensure that there is an American defeat in Iraq, in order to ensure their own political victory in 2008.” —Thomas Sowell

FOR THE RECORD

“Ask most Americans if they were aware that Iraqis, by almost a 2-to-1 margin, believe that life today is better than it was under Saddam Hussein, and you’d most likely elicit incredulousness, blank stares or outright laughter. Not because it isn’t true, though. It is. The mainstream media just forgot to mention it. In the past month, two surveys that involved face-to-face interviews with thousands of ordinary Iraqis have been released. While each contained significantly different results, both provided substantial evidence that Iraqis are not nearly as gloomy as Americans have been told to believe… Considering the daily drumbeat of dim news from the cradle of civilization, any reasonable person would expect that ordinary Iraqis rued the day we liberated them. Mainstream media execs defend the tenor of the coverage, reminding us that the news business must report what is new… Reporting news events without context, however, can easily create dangerously false perceptions. The context we do have, though, has been fashioned by the mainstream media to fit journalists’ views of the reality in Iraq. This massaging of the news has had consequences. Following year after year of almost exclusively grim news out of Iraq—even when positive stories such as the 2005 poll were readily available to cover—Americans have now soured on a war they once strongly supported.” —Joel Mowbray

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THE LAST WORD

“What it comes to is that your conception of human nature may be not merely wrong, but impolite. If you think God or nature had a purpose in making two sexes, so that sodomy isn’t quite on a par with making babies, please—keep it to yourself! In Washington, sodomy isn’t disapproved; but the word sodomy is, and you can damage your career by using it in public. You are expected to let on that you’d be horrified to learn that your son smokes Camels, but proud to learn that he’s gay. Would these be the reactions of any parent you know? What hypocrisy! But such is sophistication. We display our refinement by pretending not to have natural feelings. In the space of a few years, the tradition of millennia is repudiated. What’s more, the repudiation is mandatory for everyone. You might think that a liberal, tolerant society would leave a little room for what, until recently, everyone assumed, but no!—no trace of the old attitude is permitted. The one thing liberalism has ‘zero tolerance’ for is the past. We live in a pluralistic society now, where everyone must think and talk alike, in keeping with the latest federal diversity guidelines. Needless to say, there is precious little diversity about all this.” —Joseph Sobran

Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who have died in defense of American liberty, while prosecuting the war with Jihadistan.)