In just another day, April 15th will be here. This is the day we are all reminded of how much of our hard-earned wages are lifted by government – at all levels. From the property tax to the sales tax, to the State and federal income tax, to the myriad of fees on literally everything, to the excise taxes, to taxes when you are born to taxes when you die, we are taxed on almost everything.
It's not that every tax is onerous or evil. Some may not like any tax. But, taxes are a legitimate way to fund legitimate government. It's just that when government begins to spend our tax dollars on unconstitutional programs or bailouts and then expects us to continue to dig ever deeper to fund those illegitimate programs that folks develop a very bad taste in their mouths. And like bad tastes in our mouths, normal folks try to get rid of that bad taste. It's only normal.
So, the focus of the April 15th Tea Parties provides the opportunity to people across this Commonwealth and nation to gather peaceably together to say that we're tired of that very bad taste. But is it the taxes that are the cause of this very bad taste or is it something else? The truth be told, taxes aren't the cause, they are the symptom. Out-of-control, unconstitutional and illegitimate spending is the cause. Illegitimate spending is why a crumbling economic system confronts us today. Illegitimate spending including unconstitutional programs, bailouts, subsidizing of those who don't or won't work and earmarks of all types to the favored few identify both the cause and the solution.
The solution: quit spending on unconstitutional programs, quit spending on government programs that compete with private non-profits and churches that exist to meet the needs of the needy, and quit spending on things that grow the size of government beyond the restraints of constitutional boundaries! Just let the people keep their own money! The solution is very simple – if you support the concept of independence and personal freedom. I think the solution is easy to see, a little harder to accomplish, but impossible to oppose – if you support the concept of independence and personal freedom.
So, if you have not yet decided to attend a "Tea Party" on Wednesday, please plan on doing so. It will be good for you, your children, and the cause. I will be one of the speakers at the "Tea Party" in the front steps of the Capitol in Harrisburg beginning at noon and at Lancaster Tax Day Tea Party at 4 p.m. in Musser Park. Hope to see some of you at one of these events.
For the Cause of Independence and Personal Freedom, Sam Rohrer
"We make war that we may live in peace." --Aristotle
"I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong." --Lord Acton
"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." --Lord Acton
"It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" --Patrick Henry
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." --Thomas Paine
"The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice" --John Adams
"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 rights of the individual." --Thomas Jefferson
"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 himâ?¦the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights." --Thomas Jefferson
"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens." --Thomas Jefferson
"The protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson
"To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government as a barrier against foreign foes... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call." --Thomas Jefferson
"It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it." --Thomas Jefferson
"I am ever unwilling that [peace] should be disturbed as long as the rights and interests of the nations can be preserved. But whensoever hostile aggressions on these require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies." --Thomas Jefferson
"By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy." --Thomas Jefferson
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson
"Our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind, call on us by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to that all personal and local considerations." --Thomas Jefferson
"It is an essential attribute of the jurisdiction of every country to preserve peace, to punish acts in breach of it, and to restore property taken by force within its limits." --Thomas Jefferson
"By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy." --Thomas Jefferson
"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it. But the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our choice." --Thomas Jefferson
"We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." --Benjamin Franklin
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." --James Madison
"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed." --Abraham Lincoln
"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." --Abraham Lincoln
"The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me." --Abraham Lincoln
"Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." --Abraham Lincoln
"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." --Abraham Lincoln
"If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage." --Abraham Lincoln
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group." --Franklin D. Roosevelt
"War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing." --George W. Bush
"When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one." --Abraham Lincoln
"To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours." --Mark Twain
"It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character." --Arthur Schopenhauer
"When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them." --Plato
"He that has light within his own clear breast may sit in the center, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun." --John Milton
"Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries." --James A. Michener
"We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it." --Abraham Lincoln
"I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"A man's character is his guardian divinity." --Heraclitus