[FreeFromContract]

Originally Posted by Lawdog

You're damn right society and government have changed since the time of the Founders. They always knew it would be. That is why they provided for a process of constitutional amendment. The first twelve amendments were all ratified by 1804.

This last post of yours illustrates a level of arrogance and ignorance that I must admit I did not expect. You only point to amendments as making your point? Please! How many amendments have occurred in the past 50 years? Complacency often allows good governments to be replaced by bad ones. History provides many examples of bad governments (and leaders) being pushed out by good ones, no matter how good or benevolent they may have been in the beginning. That is why revolutions happen.

Jefferson was right in his statement you provided. However, you neglect to mention the dozens of quotes attributed to him warning of the movement toward bad government (the evil). History shows that often happens when the end of government is to ensure it's own perpetuity and security over the liberty of the people. Jefferson is very direct and deliberate in his pointing out the right of every man to security or liberty over the need of government:

"No nation however powerful, any more than an individual, can be unjust with impunity. Sooner or later, public opinion, an instrument merely moral in the beginning, will find occasion physically to inflict its sentences on the unjust... The lesson is useful to the weak as well as the strong." --Thomas Jefferson
to James Madison, 1804.

(This should be read in light of your opening post. Who was it this man threatened or endangered?)

"What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian Senate." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1816.

"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Hammond, 1821.

"Can one generation bind another and all others in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not for the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter unendowed with will."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.

"Aware of the tendency of power to degenerate into abuse, the worthies of our country have secured its independence by the establishment of a Constitution and form of government for our nation, calculated to prevent as well as to correct abuse."
--Thomas Jefferson to Washington Tammany Society, 1809.

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

"Laws provide against injury from others, but not from
ourselves." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776

"[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782. Q.XIII

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." [10th Amendment] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition." --Thomas
Jefferson: National Bank Opinion, 1791.

"Whenever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." --Thomas Jefferson: Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.

"No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority." --Thomas Jefferson to New London Methodist, 1809.

"A right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre
Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816.

"The rights of the people to the exercise and fruits of their own industry can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1816.

"Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust. Whether our Constitution has hit on the exact degree of control
necessary, is yet under experiment." --Thomas Jefferson to M. van der Kemp, 1812.

"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not
hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787.
(Consider this in light of what Congress is attempting to pass against talk radio.)

"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is,
therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804.

"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker, in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813.

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute of Religious Freedom, 1779.

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

"The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes." --Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779.

"Law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it
violates the right of an individual." --Thomas Jefferson to
Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.

"Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former. Real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries." --Thomas Jefferson: Report on Spanish Convention, 1792.

"A strict observation of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lost the law itself, with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means." --Thomas Jefferson to John Colvin, 1810.

I don't expect you to understand any of the above. Based upon your posts it is obvious you are not a student of history or you simply don't have the capacity to understand the lessons which have been taught.

I repeat my comment from a previous post: the manner, method and opportunities you choose to espouse your support of an ever increasing fascist and totalitarian government is pathetic.

Let me leave you to ponder this since you seem to be so proud of governmental change:

"Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long as possible." --Thomas
Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821.

I know I am not alone when I say this:

We have reached that time.