Government shutdown

It's about 20 yrs. overdue, but what the heck....

Libertarians call for permanent government shutdown

WASHINGTON - As elected officials put on a dog-and-pony media show about a temporary shutdown of small parts of the federal government, the Libertarian Party calls for a permanent shutdown of most of the federal government.

Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict said, "Just think how a permanent government shutdown would allow so many Americans to regain the blessings of liberty.

"Education would blossom as the Department of Education ended its War on Learning, no longer wasting our money and preventing educational innovation with one-size-fits-all centralized mandates.

"Job opportunities at companies big and small would multiply, providing opportunity and choice for American workers.

"The world would enjoy peace as we withdrew our forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Our government spends almost as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. Millions of industrious men and women who work for the military and its contractors could be focusing on building up our economy, rather than tearing down others'.

"Crime would plummet as the government's War on Drugs ended, no longer sustaining a giant violent black market and overfilling our prisons.

"The life of many poorer Americans would improve as welfare programs stopped, no longer trapping low-income families in an endless cycle of government dependency.

"All Americans would feel a huge burden lifted every April, as they were no longer required to wrestle with a byzantine and oppressive IRS.

"But most importantly, Americans would once again be free of unjust and unconstitutional violations of their unalienable rights."

Benedict added, "We're not talking about eliminating the federal government. We want to end all federal activities that are not authorized by the Constitution, and we want to cut everything else as much as we can. In 2000, the federal government spent $1.8 trillion. This year it's expected to spend $3.8 trillion. Things are going the wrong way -- fast."

For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.

The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets, civil liberties, and peace. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website

The following are all quotes from one man. Who said...???

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” (Quoting Cesare Beccaria)

The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. (Back then!)

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

The god who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

In matters of style, swim with the current; In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.

When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add “within the limits of the law,” because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.

Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

In a government bottomed on the will of all, the...liberty of every individual citizen becomes interesting to all.

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

Most bad government has grown out of too much government.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

The right of self-government does not comprehend the government of others.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.

History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

Thomas Jefferson

Lanny

Oh Twill you made me laugh, but I have rhubarb growing as we speak. :laugh: Now what do I do,call a Mexican, report him or not? PC

PC, you don't raise the rhubarb. You hire someone to do that for $9 an hr. w/ no bennies ( the local emergency room will be the family's healthcare) Then you take the $1/2 mil tax deduction.... and Voila!! You have the Political Ideological version of "Job Creation".......

Ya see, that job was there on paper, in some bureaucrats drawer all along. Screw the Chinese........we have Rhubarb Farms!!

Oh Lordy do I have to raise BEES now, is there a subsidy for rhubarb? PC

Fox channel had an investigation the other night on freeloading by the rich people.There were multi millionaries like Bon Jovi who paid only $100 a year in property taxes on his huge farm because he put bees in it or because it was considered an organic farm something like that .His next door neighbour living in a trailer was paying $600 a year property tax on her 2 acre farm.The government subsidies on solar panels are largely helping the rich folks who can afford to pay the full price for it to begin with. and yet the public perception of freeloading is focused on some poor black ladies on welfare or illegal immigrants making it look like they're the ones sucking this country dry.

Alba don't you get it? Us roofers is Multi Billionaires by golly. Jeez. Look in the mirror fellas--- that ain't George Soros staring back at you :dry:

Lower and middle class pay a lot of taxes if they're single with no dependents.

Yes we all know that Warren Buffet pays more taxes than his secretary

twill59 Said: PC what is so different now is this: Of course we taxpayers, i.e. middle & lower classes knew we were getting taken to the cleaners in life.

Uh, no, what was different was that back then, all of the middle class and some of the lower class actually paid taxes. Today, the lower doesn't, nor does 1/2 of the middle.

Just a little insight. I know this guy that worked for a local trucking company, I once worked for them for 10 yrs. I know trucking besides roofing. He was a mechanic, get the trucks in and out in a hurry. He did it for years. He had an opportunity to work at a Naval Base and did what he did for years, worked quick. He was told to slow down. Slow down. Slow down. The Naval Base has a budget that they want to keep. They need to qualify their need of $$$$. Slow Down :S PC

America is what it is

We the people are the fools for buying into that patriotic propaganda crap.The military industrial complex is getting rich of afghan and iraq war.The blackwater security for example is guarding the US embassy in kabul instead of us marines.They charge the us government $454000 a year per officer while a marines cost $54000 a year.

Alba, we are just the latest fools to be center stage on the world stage. Bin Laden counted on our egos dragging us down. And he is no genius

"The world would enjoy peace as we withdrew our forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Our government spends almost as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. Millions of industrious men and women who work for the military and its contractors could be focusing on building up our economy, rather than tearing down others' We're spending $200 million a day in Afghanistan.osama bin Ladin has moved to pakistan and we're stuck trying to govern a country that nobody starting since Alexander the Great era has ever been able to govern.

I'm probably going to change back to independent. I had been that way for years but I couldn't vote locally unless I was a designated Dem or Rep, flipped a coin came Dem that is how I am registered. Still can not grab why we have to choose sides. I am so not looking forward to the upcoming election. The thing I like about being an Independent is ...it keeps them guessing, as it should.

JSC...just the thought of noone showing up to vote makes me smile. No it won't happen but maybe it should. A different kind of revelution. PC

I've also voted Libertarian many times.

The only wasted vote is a vote for someone that you don't really support.