Was he referring to what happened in the Gore/Bush debacle?

PS: The Essay is entitled Self-Reliance. If you put the great men of the past like Jefferson so high on a pedestal and bow down to him are you not creating a Golden Calf that stops you from doing your own thinking. Bottom line Jim K. Jefferson, Washington et al were men and so are you and I. They would be appalled at your worship of them.

Da Waffler Speaks: Jefferson has spoken the truth here. Government is a coming together for a common puropose. Most common purposes require the input of common labor, funds etcetera. The only source of these is the people and the results are for the people. I am glad some have remembered the ghost or at the least the spirit of da Waffler, sorry I have been absent from these hallowed blogs for a number of days. Thanks Jim K for the complement and yes you to can be a great man! It starts with using your mind and putting things in writing. The only reason we think of the writers of the past as great men is becaucse they created a record. There are many great men at all times and everywhere but they do not always create a record. Read Ralph Waldo Emersons essay on Independence for more about this.

I prefer to owe my gratitude to a system of law and agreed upon rules and regulations even if it be labryinthine than to a personal authoritative conservative government such as Dr Scruton would seem to enjoy. The USA was founded on just such a principal of government by us rather than by a personal authoritative tyrannt. Dave obviously does not know what facism really is!

I have recently driven over Hoover Dam. The works of government and of men as well as man in cooperation are the wonders of the world. Doing the pyramids, the great wall, etcetera etcetera could not be done without government doing something to and for the people.

Good stuff Elizabeth. We have drifted a little what with illegal this and illegal that winked at here and there.

Good Anon lets all keep our chins up and fight the good fight of faith, in each other, our political system,and avoid negativism and keep open minds.

I meant Tom affectionatly and he would be the first to appreciate the diminutive. He is one of my favorites but he was just a man like you I J. Governement via the Federal Marshall and the Sheriff gave liberty to the west when they were being beaten down by the liberty loving, gun toting western gangs. That is what I meant by government (and by the way that government is us). Glenn is on the right track. Many here have a perspective and a bias and it is simply, purely and only anti-government. Sometimes being anti-government can also be anti-liberty.

Jefferson and Anon above were and our men of faith and optimism. America has remained a people and a government without a master for these 230 years or so. It continues to struggle and always will to prevent masters taking over in many different spheres. The latest of course being the financial masters of wall street. While we continue to be of, by and for the people there is hope for continued faith and otimism. The stock market is certainly proving it llately.

Compulsory education laws while an obvious affront to our liberties have increased the reading level I guess a 1000 fold. While anyone can go on ad nauseum about some kids who do not do well, it really does get old. There will always be some who do not do as well as others in school, business, life etcetera. To seek some lock step path for all is a little bit socialistic.While knowledge, education, learning and discovery, in my value system, is what liberty is all about, others should be free to pursue, higher education and knowledge at their own speed. Beyond basics the public should not be educated by self appointed czars. J all you need to do is google IraqToday etcetera to get all of the news you care for etcetera. The other day folk attacked the Nazis for saying "A German woman does not smoke" here Jefferson is saying basically, "An American stays informed". In fairness if one construction is hateful propaganda or enforced control of people and their liberty why is not the other.

Tom was a bit of a motor mouth, his words should be read and anlysed carefully. Not something that is often done by Mike and J. First of all liberty and government are not opposites. The liberties we enjoy in the USA were brought about by the Continental Congress waging war on the King of England. The Congress was a goverrnment. Then the weak governement of the united colonies was replaced by a stronger government that was able to insure greater liberty including eventually freedom from slavery, freedom for all to vote, etcetera. Most know of some free people who are more than willing to enslave others into prostitution, sweat shop labor, employ illegals etcetera. Only through our united action via the governmnet(s) we set up can we counter the seemingly inate inhumanity to man. Liberty strangely enough does not generally come from every one being at liberty to do whatever he individually wants to do but comes from the united action of all of us.

The quote is about men administering their affairs, can you really not read? You cannot, and you prove it daily.

Sounds like the Tea Party to me. They are wong but I support their right to be wong 100%. Just like I support Mike.

One need only to go back to and study the stifling culture and society of old Europe with its Nobility and Chruch hierarchies or the current or recent stifling cultures of Islam or of the 1700's in Japan etcetera to understand the breath of fresh air that was and is the American Revolution. 1776 was not just about freedom from the English overlords but about the freedom of man from years of stictures imposed by the church and the nobility. Now the American penchant for breathing fresh intellectual and political air has invested the cultures of most of the world and many of them strive for the freedom that the shores of America offer. That guys like Mike are still stifled is sad very sad indeed. Guys like Mike J and Jim just need to wake up to reality. If they do not feel free in the America of today they just have their head in the sand.

Claence Thomas has no jurisdiction until a case is brought before him. A case has not and will not because they ain't no case and never will be. It is only idiots who think there is. My comments are concerning American freedom and that a minority or presumed minority man of different racial make uip than the majority can be elected. Guys like you J also think Hitler is alive, and the holocaust never happened. I think it is good for the body politic that a man can be elected based on his brain and not on his color or party or m

The quote is obviously about men not man. About group or political aciton not about individuality. It is not my fault you guys cannot or choose not to read.

J you are partly correct. While I am for economic freedom, I still think we need leashes on liars, and fraudsters. What American entrepreneural freedom has given us in the last 20 years or so is a class of people whom come up with good ideas for products and then go to China to find a shop to make and then bring it back to America to sell. Or they hire illegal aliens to make it here so that they don't have to pay American citizens raises or benefits. Believe me I have met entreprenuers that do exactly that and one who told me he prefers illegals for exactly that reason. So don't tell me we that don't have economic freedom or entrepreneurs, we do and they are stiffing us every day.

We have often not practiced it, and too often our forefathers did not practice it. Writing in 1956 I have to believe that Faulkner, a son of Mississippi, had in mind the caste system of Jim Crow, and discrimination throughout the nation. The election of Barack Obama is maybe the greatest example of US having arrived, at least politically, at a higher level, not heierarchically, but at a much higher level of practicing freedom. America looked upon by much of the world (and correctly) as a nation of white people, elected a black man (or at least half black and half white) as President. We are, if only just lately, starting to practice our freedom. LET FREEDOM RING!

The quote quite clearly says "men who adminster their own affairs" it does not say "MAN who administers HIS own affairs". The quote is about political democracy and is spot on concerning the way our Beloved American Democracy should be run and is being run.

Yes unfofortunately some think freedom means doing whatever without considering consequences. We are hemmed in on every side with consequences. Freedom is the opportunity to run our own affairs both individually, and communally as we see fit. Of course as many attest on this site the balancing act between the two sectors individual and community is where the argument generally lies.

I don't care J who took the leashes off of those guys and Wall Street but you the fact remains that homo sapiens can be greedy run away pigs without leashes. Man's inhumanity to man is well documented. I must assume you never heard of Madoff, Billy Sol Estes, McKesson & Robbins, and the Republican penchant for "let money run the country". Whatever does not get looked at, audited etcetera runs amok. Obama et al are not now looking at improving Wall Street regulation because they agree with goofy Friedman's dictum to unleash and let the dogs out.

He obviously wrote this before the 2007 melt down caused by "freedom" in economic arrangements. He obvioulsy and apparently never read or studied the Gilded Age of the 1880's when the robber barons ran the economic life of the US.

Welfare as we knew it ceased under Bill Clinton, does anyone really know what the hell it is. As we know Bob Dole's parents were on welfae after WWII. Is it just a trick word to get guys like J Carlton riled up. There is always room for reform but usually need for compassion also. When we put people out of business we must attend to the resulting problem as with the Native Americans for example or as in when we kicked the slaves off of the plantation "welfare system"..

I feel sorry for some guys I know who cannot cook and must rely on restaurant meals three times a day. Being independent and self sufficient I have no problem being waited on occasionally.

Thank God we have never known tyranny or the rule of one or a few in this our Beloved American Democracy.