21 November 2010

Who said it?

See if you can guess who said each of the following quotes:

"Property monopolized or in possession of a few is a curse to mankind."

"I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."

"[in Europe] economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny."

"No man ought to own more property than needed for his liveli- hood; the rest, by right, belonged to the state."

If you guessed Karl Marx or Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (or Barack Obama), you are in understandable error. The quotes are from, respectively, Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. I found them at Politicus USA, except for the third one which I found at Sustainable Democracy; as best I can tell by checking up, they're genuine.

I do not, by the way, personally agree with Franklin's words here; I'm a socialist, not a Communist. But the quotes are of value in deflating the claims of teabaggers and other Republicans that they are being true to the vision of the Founding Fathers while pushing policies which, in fact, serve only to further enrich and empower the kleptocracy.

Working- or middle-class teabaggers should (but won't) consider this comment by Sarah Jones at the Politicus USA post:

"There have always been the Poujadist type masses, easily manipulated by the state via the opium of the church and/or jingoistic nationalism. It’s no wonder the Right is anti-education. If the people could think for themselves, the Right would never get elected these days....."

It would go ill with the right if their sheep were to put aside their slogans and buzzwords and start using facts and logic to assess their self-interest -- or even if they learned how the founders of this country really thought.

7 Comments:

Blogger Ahab said...

"It’s no wonder the Right is anti-education. If the people could think for themselves, the Right would never get elected these days ..."

Bullseye. The extreme right thrives on ignorance.

I too wish that more citizens would educate themselves about history and complex political issues instead of swallowing rhetoric -- but which is easier? Tragically, many people are too comfortable and lazy to educate themselves. This is what we're up against.

21 November, 2010 13:21  
Blogger squatlo said...

beautiful post, man!

21 November, 2010 15:41  
Blogger Sue said...

the righties love referring to the founding fathers, even tho they are consistently wrong on what the founders actually said. Yup, they just take Glenn Becks word for everything...

I love that politicususa, I'm so glad I found that blog!

21 November, 2010 18:02  
Blogger Jack Jodell said...

Infidel 753,
These quotes prove how uninformed, stupid, and twisted most of the teabaggers are. To attribute their current flawed ideology to the true intent of our Founding Fathers is ludicrous, but they do it all the time.

21 November, 2010 21:33  
Blogger Ranch Chimp said...

Jack Jodell: Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh ... When it come's to uninformed, stupidity, and twisted .... there's a Hell of alot more than just Tea Bag's in this nation that fall into that category rest assured.

22 November, 2010 04:23  
Blogger Shaw Kenawe said...

Wow! Great research! I'm going to put these up on my blog as well [with attribution, of course]. More people need to read these.

22 November, 2010 18:59  
Blogger Robert the Skeptic said...

Tea Baggers forget that the founding fathers were wealthy property owners and their form of Democracy was designed with their own kind in mind. I would guess that were Jefferson, Adams, Franklin were alive today they would consider themselves distinct from rabble low-life like the Tea Baggers.

26 November, 2010 14:32  

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