“A right of free correspondence between citizen & citizen, on their joint interests, whether public or private, & under whatsoever laws these interests arise . . . is a natural right; it is not the gift of any principal law . . . but in common with all our other natural rights, is one of [...]
Monthly Archives: July 2007
On the importance of an easy method of exchanging information (such as the Internet):
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
On immigration:
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Today, Human Rights Watch (an international interest group that promotes human rights) released a statement in which it said that since Congress’s passage of a tough immigration law in 1996, around 1.6 million children and spouses have been separated from loved ones who were forced to leave the United States because they had arrived here [...]
On the government’s use of tax revenue:
Friday, July 13, 2007
“If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.“
On the national debt:
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
“I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt.”
On gambling:
Friday, July 6, 2007
“Gambling . . . corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.”
On the Fourth of July:
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
“The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over
too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of
despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and
all who work them.”
—Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1821
On acts of terrorism uniting people against a common enemy:
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Thomas Jefferson believed that atrocities committed by an enemy tended to unite the nation being targeted, increasing its ability to fight back against the aggressor. He wrote:
“I am exceedingly sorry to learn that the enemy are committing such cruel depredations. . . . [H]owever, it may tend to produce immoveable hatred against so detestable a [...]