Posted by
M*A on Saturday, August 08, 2009 10:30:12 PM
I heard the President make these remarks the other day….
I don’t think he was talking about Congressman Barney Frank who opposed regulating Freddy Mac and Fannie May.
I don’t even think he was talking about any Republicans that are
opposed to his policies. (Although I think it’s a safe bet he wants
them to shut up.) I think he was talking about the people showing up
at town hall meetings and are getting in the faces of their elected representatives. As Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina said to Democrats as they headed back to their home districts…
“If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,”
Didn’t the President promise to listen to the concerns of the citizens? Shouldn’t that include representatives elected by the people?
I’m reading a biography of Benjamin Franklin and came across this quote…mind you this was written in 1726 when he was 16 years old.
“Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing
as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of
speech, which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not
hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it
ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know.
This sacred privilege is so essential to free governments that the
security of property and the freedom of speech always go together; and
in those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own,
he can scarce call anything else his own.
Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech…
The administration of government is nothing else but the attendance of the trustees of the people upon
the interest and affairs of the people; and as it is the part and
business of the people, for whose sake alone all public matters are, or
ought to be, transacted, to see whether they be well or ill transacted,
so it is in the interest and ought to be the ambition of all
honest magistrates to have their deeds openly examined and publicly
scanned. Only the wicked governors of men dread what is said of them.“
And, yes, Mr. President…we know you won…you are the President…of ALL the people…even those whose talking…disagrees with you.
(I sure hope no one turns me into the Thought Police Fishy Email Czar Internet Snitch Brigade whoever keeps track of the folks who disagree.)