Politicians From Philadelphia

"Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years—and still are? Not even close."

"The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing."

"The military option will remain on the table. If there is a good agreement to have, obviously it's worth waiting for and completing the negotiations."

"There was never a conspiracy, never a tremendous fear. This is a society which is now in its third generation of severe political repression, so that children in North Korea have several hours of political education a day. Their parents did, and their grandparents did."

"That is what you wake up to every morning. It is what my wife and I think of when we go visit hospitals on the weekend. And so providing our people with all the support they can, you can possibly give them. And that does not always come naturally to this place, which is thinking in budgets and thinking in the future. You always have to remember that they are in danger."

"We have been keeping the peace in the Asia-Pacific theater for decades now, and the essence of the rebalance is to keep that peace and stability going, of which we have been a pivotal part. You ask about India, yes it is difficult. We are two technical and military cultures that grew up on opposite sides of the fence during the Cold War."

"We need to change because the world is changing, and we need to anticipate what is next and be there first, as the US military has always been. So, the changes in our future, I think is something that we are all completely committed to."

"Our nightmare, any of us, which would change the way we lived our lives, was if we thought that any moment Al Qaeda might detonate a nuclear weapon in a city anywhere in the world, because we learned that they had gotten hold of some plutonium from the North Koreans by sale, or when the North Korean regime collapsed, somebody smuggled it out."

"I hope that the North Koreans understand that the conclusions that we came to are conclusions that are embedded in America's security situation."

"I don't know how long the North Korean regime can last. But we can't just wait for them to collapse, because in the meantime, they can do lasting damage to our security."

"Fight any attempts to redefine family by allowing special rights for homosexuals or single-parent unwed mothers."

"Republican policies must aim at the most destructive trend in the family disintegration: the undermining of parental authority through parental abdication and government usurpation. Notwithstanding Democratic rhetoric to the contrary, it is not uncompassionate and anti-family to mandate parental consent for all decisions made by minors in and out of school, and to refuse government aid to those who reject the traditional values of responsibility and accountability. While no government program can make people be good, policies should reward people when they are, and not subsidize them when they are not. For example, every level of government should statutorily and procedurally prefer married couples over cohabitators, homosexuals and fornicators. The cost of sin should fall on the sinner not the taxpayer. While such thinking may be attacked for lacking political realism in a changing world, it is imperative that government stand firm in support of traditional family values."

"In Republican rhetoric and policies on crime and welfare reform, one discerns a view of man as an accountable and responsible moral agent. In their positions on economic growth, Republicans endorse the provision of opportunity, not guarantees, by getting "government out of the way, off the backs of households and entrepreneurs, so the people could take charge." In principle the party has supported a pro-family agenda: religious freedom to include voluntary prayer in public schools; a human life amendment; the appointment of judges at all levels who respect the sanctity of human life and traditional family values; and the right of private property as the cornerstone of liberty."

"For at least 8 years, Republican domestic policies have demonstrated that man is capable of doing good only in an atmosphere of liberty and faith, not compulsion and atheism. However, man's basic nature is inclined towards evil, and when the exercise of liberty takes the shape of pornography, drug abuse, or homosexuality, the government must restrain, punish, and deter."

"Professor Henry Holzer of the Brooklyn Law School believes that together the Belle Terre (1974) and Moore (1971) decisions stand for the proposition that it is a collectivist-statist ideology, not a concept of individual rights, that lies at the base of official government thinking about the family. Further, when the Court reviews state definitions of, or intrusions into, the family, "the determinative criterion will be the importance of the state interest involved." Riga concludes that in 15 years of Supreme Court cases ending in 1979, the view of marriage as an indissoluble lifelong commitment had been abandoned. In its wake is the perverted notion of liberty that each individual should be able to live out his sexual life in any way he chooses without interference from the state. The consequences of such thinking have been previously discussed, and ironically create the very problems that society now calls on the federal government to solve."

"In 1973, the Court in the Roe v. Wade decision gave the individual the right to destroy the unborn through abortion, and three years later in Planned Parenthood v. Danforth it extended the supremacy of individual privacy over parental authority in the child's abortion decision. In his seminal article on the Court's role in shaping a national family policy, scholar Peter J. Riga suggests that in Danforth, "marriage is seen as a tenuous union formed by the consensual agreement of the two individuals who remain autonomous and independent throughout the relationship." He further asserts that by the end of the 1970s, the Court had, for all practical purposes, obliterated the difference between marriage and non-marriage, replacing the sacred covental view of marriage with the "positivistic view that a marriage is but an act of the state, which powers the state may delegate in appropriate cricumstances." In other cases, the abuses of the judicial doctrines of "in loco parentis" and "parens patriae," particularly in such areas as education, discipline of children, and child custody, have fostered subversion of the role of the parent in favor of ultimate decisions on family and children matters by the state and federal governments."

"The vast majority of American children have been educated in the American public school system, in which textbooks and courses of instruction are increasingly oriented to reflect humanist views and a secular philosophy. The undermining of respect for parental authority in favor of state direction or individual autonomy, and the contemporaneous purging of religious influence in the public schools has impaired the development of healthy family members. Values that had historically provided strength to the family, such as firm discipline and corporal punishment, patriotism, and academic achievement, were either attacked, or given token attention."

"The United States Supreme Court dealt among the harshest blows to the American family and traditional morality. A century ago, the Court demonstrated profound respect for the traditional views of marriage and family, stating in Maynard v. Hill that "marriage is the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress." However in 1965 with Griswold v. Connecticut, the court embarked on [a] dualistic path by attempting to create a view of liberty based on radical individualism, while facilitating statist control of select family issues. The Court postulated a new view of marriage by asserting that "preservation of marital privacy" precludes state interference with the right to use contraceptives, even though the state had long been empowered to regulate the legal and sexual relationships of marriage. In Eisenstadt v. Baird the activist Court illogically extended the Griswold notion of "marital privacy" to unmarried persons, at a time when every state in the union made sexual intercourse between unmarried persons a crime."

"I don’t think any politician wants to be exposed as doing the things Bob McDonnell did. It doesn’t matter if it’s a crime or not."

"We are broke, have an unconscionable amount in credit card debt already, and this Inaugural is killing us!"

"This has been both a heartbreaking and humbling period of time for me and for my family. But what I can control is how I react to things and what I can control is how to make Virginia a better state."

"The people of Virginia have spoken by a margin of 57-43. They’ve already enshrined in the Virginia Constitution that gay marriage is not permitted, so unless there is another effort to change the Constitution, that matter is settled. That is the law of the land and, look, reasonable people can disagree on these things. That’s what the law is now. That’s something that I support. That was the right decision."

"WHEREAS, April is the month in which the people of Virginia joined the Confederate States of America in a four year war between the states for independence that concluded at Appomattox Courthouse; and WHEREAS, Virginia has long recognized her Confederate history, the numerous civil war battlefields that mark every region of the state, the leaders and individuals in the Army, Navy and at home who fought for their homes and communities and Commonwealth in a time very different than ours today; and WHEREAS, it is important for all Virginians to reflect upon our Commonwealth's shared history, to understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War, and to recognize how our history has led to our present; and WHEREAS, Confederate historical sites such as the White House of the Confederacy are open for people to visit in Richmond today; and WHEREAS, all Virginians can appreciate the fact that when ultimately overwhelmed by the insurmountable numbers and resources of the Union Army, the surviving, imprisoned and injured Confederate soldiers gave their word and allegiance to the United States of America, and returned to their homes and families to rebuild their communities in peace, following the instruction of General Robert E. Lee of Virginia, who wrote that, "...all should unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects of war and to restore the blessings of peace."; and WHEREAS, this defining chapter in Virginia's history should not be forgotten, but instead should be studied, understood and remembered by all Virginians, both in the context of the time in which it took place, but also in the context of the time in which we live, and this study and remembrance takes on particular importance as the Commonwealth prepares to welcome the nation and the world to visit Virginia for the Sesquicentennial Anniversary of the Civil War, a four-year period in which the exploration of our history can benefit all; NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert McDonnell, do hereby recognize April 2010 as CONFEDERATE HISTORY MONTH in our COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens."

"As the family goes, so goes the nation."

"The giftedness of the Republican philosophy is that it embraces the talent and worth of all peoples, while Democrats seek to shepherd a nation of powerless incompetents."

"Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them..."

"A founding father who signed the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Rush advocated for women's education and the abolition of slavery. He pioneered the humane treatment of psychiatric patients, but unfortunately thought that mental illness was best treatment with a dose of . He suggested this for the treatment of : Mercury acts in this disease, 1, by abstracting morbid excitement from the brain to the mouth. 2, by removing visceral obstructions. And, 3, by changing the cause of our patient's complaints and fixing them wholly upon his sore mouth. The salivation will do still more service if it excite some degree of resentment against the patient's physician or friends. Resentment against your doctor and is a fantastic side effect! But in truth, Rush was replacing hypochondria with ."

"… (In) contemplating the political institutions of the United States, I lament that (if we remove the Bible from schools) we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of (our government)."

"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship ... To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a republic ... The Constitution of this republic should make the special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom."

"But passing by all other considerations, and contemplating merely the political institutions of the United States, I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them. We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of republicanism."

"I agree with you likewise in your wishes to keep religion and government independent of each Other. Were it possible for St. Paul to rise from his grave at the present juncture, he would say to the Clergy who are now so active in settling the political Affairs of the World. “Cease from your political labors your kingdom is not of this World. Read my Epistles. In no part of them will you perceive me aiming to depose a pagan Emperor, or to place a Christian upon a throne. Christianity disdains to receive Support from human Governments. From this, it derives its preeminence over all the religions that ever have, or ever Shall exist in the World. Human Governments may receive Support from Christianity but it must be only from the love of justice, and peace which it is calculated to produce in the minds of men. By promoting these, and all the Other Christian Virtues by your precepts, and example, you will much sooner overthrow errors of all kind, and establish our pure and holy religion in the World, than by aiming to produce by your preaching, or pamphlets any change in the political state of mankind.”"

"It must afford no small pleasure to a benevolent mind in the midst of a war, which daily makes so much havoc with the human species, to reflect, that the small-pox which once proved equally fatal to thousands, has been checked in its career, and in a great degree subdued by the practice of Inoculation."

"Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights."

"The American war is over; but this far from being the case with the American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government and to prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of government after they are established and brought to perfection."

"I need say hardly anything in the Unintelligence of the Negroes, They show capacities of Providence and they are most likely always having low self-esteem But needless to say my Virtue, Power, And Strength have helped them to become strong most upcoming individuals in the nation they show pride and interest in education and learning new things And Just know What lies with you once lies with you more until change is done."

"The first thing I would recommend to put a stop to slavery in this country, is to leave off importing slaves. For this purpose let our assemblies unite in petitioning the king and parliament to dissolve the African committee of merchants: It is by them that the trade is chiefly carried on to America."

"When the history of Oregon comes to be written the mind of the historian will be impressed by the earnestness and sincerity of character—the unobtrusive, unostentatious conduct of those who formed its population from the first reclaiming of the wilderness—the pioneer epoch—to the more refined advancement into social and political existence."

"On a field, _____ Chevrons composed of seven pieces on one side & six on the other, joined together at the top in such wise that each of the six bears against or is supported by & supports two of the opposite side the pieces of the chevrons on each side alternate red & white. The shield borne on the breast of an American Eagle on the wing & rising proper. In the dexter talon of the Eagle an Olive branch & in the sinister a bundle of Arrows. Over the head of the Eagle a Constellation of Stars surrounded with bright rays and at a little distance clouds. In the bill of the Eagle a scroll with these words E pluribus unum."

"The pyramid signifies Strength and Duration: The Eye over it & the Motto allude to the many signal interpositions of providence in favour of the American cause. The date underneath is that of the Declaration of Independence and the words under it signify the beginning of the new American Æra, which commences from that date."

"The Escutcheon is composed of the chief & pale, the two most honorable ordinaries. The Pieces, paly, represent the several states all joined in one solid compact entire, supporting a Chief, which unites the whole & represents Congress. The Motto alludes to this union. The pales in the arms are kept closely united by the chief and the Chief depends upon that union & the strength resulting from it for its support, to denote the Confederacy of the United States of America & the preservation of their union through Congress."

"The Escutcheon is composed of the chief & pale, the two most honorable ordinaries. The Pieces, paly, represent the several states all joined in one solid compact entire, supporting a Chief, which unites the whole & represents Congress. The Motto alludes to this union. The pales in the arms are kept closely united by the chief and the Chief depends upon that union & the strength resulting from it for its support, to denote the Confederacy of the United States of America & the preservation of their union through Congress. The colours of the pales are those used in the flag of the United States of America; White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valor, and Blue, the colour of the Chief signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice. The Olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace & war which is exclusively vested in Congress. The Constellation denotes a new State taking its place and rank among other sovereign powers. The Escutcheon is born on the breast of an American Eagle without any other supporters to denote that the United States of America ought to rely on their own Virtue."

"Let the world admire the supposed wisdom and valor of our great men. Perhaps they may adopt the qualities that have been ascribed to them, and thus good may be done. I shall not undeceive future generations."

"Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."

"The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them."

"The power of the sword, say the minority..., is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans."

"The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but where, I trust in God, it will always remain, in the hands of the people."