Such is life!!  You get out of it what you put into it.  Risk is inherent.  Death is guaranteed.  So what are you going to do?  That is the nobility of the common man.  Have some courage!

Again, the Jefferson estate was mortgaged, including the slaves which were essentially attached as property.  Jefferson was unable to pay them off, he died in debt.  Fathering children out of wedlock may be considered immoral, but it certainly wasn't/isn't uncommon — certainly not a cause to throw the baby out with the bath water.  Jefferson brought the case for freeing the slaves before the Continental Congress — that is a fact.  And if that clause had been included, his slaves would have been free.  Who is to say how many of Jefferson's slaves would have remained?  Who can really bear witness to how Jefferson interacted with his servants?  Can you even conceive of the idea that slaves were also loved and treated as family? (Some were.)  I give Jefferson the benefit of the doubt.  Far from being perfect, he was one of the most brilliant minds in American history.

It's funny how Waffler gets tripped up by 'reason.'  Classic progressive liberalism...

Today we have social media playing gatekeepers for the powers-that-should-not-be.  What was billed to be a public forum of ideas and communication has turned into the Ministry of Truth with armies of censors creating a narrative for authoritarian control.  Funny how in the search for Truth, the censors act as if they already know it.  We have been lied to for generations — how dare we share those discoveries!  Complete and total surveillance from cradle to grave is the goal — as if the world were a big Sim City game with the social(ist) engineers calling the shots. Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram are all in cahoots, and WE are the fools and knaves.

Aren't today's police forces a standing army?  We have been under martial law for over a month with the police enforcing the quarantine of healthy people during this Wu Flu pandemic.  The death totals still are under 2019 flu deaths, yet the entire nation has been shut down.  This is a manufactured crisis, and if it weren't for the standing army, people could get on with their lives. 

Authoritarian regimes need crisis and scarcity so that the people are powerless and dependent on government.  No one is talking about the trillions of new fiat currency being pumped into circulation — a central banker's dream.  People may not be able to go back to work unless they get a flu shot — big pharma's dream.  Mail-in voting may be implemented for the elections — the Democrat's dream.  Never let a crisis go to waste, right?  I for one am tired of Chicken Little and Henny Penny commanding a standing army over us!

I agree with the statement, but doesn't it smack of the 'rules for thee but not for me' elitism so common among 'authorities'?  Isn't it an admission that rules that every one must obey discourage their ability to reason for themselves?  From a Libertarian perspective, this is a rebuke on being regulated by 'rules,' but from a Authoritarian perspective, this is the justification for their power and their shunning of the rules they make for others.

Courage is the virtue that supports all the rest.

Put yourself in Jefferson's position.  You have inherited slaves.  Some are mortgaged.  The slaves are in your care.  They run the farm (requiring hundreds of laborers), the household.  The law of the land prohibits free slaves.  A freed black could be enslaved again.  Jefferson tried to free ALL slaves in the Declaration of Independence.  If you were prohibited from freeing your slaves and you were against slavery in principal, how would you treat those under your care?

Ever since I was a child I have been wanting to govern my own actions — I could hardly wait to be 'grown up.'  Unfortunately, every effort to govern my own actions is being countered with arbitrary regulation as if I were in school forever beholden to the teachers and principal.  Let me out of here! ;-)

By "link" I mean a page that describes what you are talking about.  If this is your own personal integration of spiritual 'truths' then so be it.  But you speak as if your terminology were common knowledge.  Frankly, you are not making any cogent sense.  I know there is something you are trying to say, it is just getting lost in (the lack of) translation.  Your frequent posts of Biblical quotes seem at odds with the numerology and in an unfamiliar language (not Latin, Greek, or Hebrew — Egyptian?).  Just wondering ...

Wow!  Hear, hear!

Lot's of meaning here.  ;-)  Focusing on the word 'bit' — just because your jail cell has been decorated doesn't make you free.

Rewriting history to suit your own 21st century take on the 18th century is not serving the truth.  Note, all plantations in Virginia were run by slaves.  There was no way to free a slave in Virginia at that time — the slave would be enslaved to another laying claim to him.  How slaves were treated by their masters varied widely, and like other domesticated animals, many were loved and cared for by their owners.  There are no anecdotes of Jefferson being a hard master — on the contrary, he treated his slaves well.  His slaves were also used as collateral (since they were considered property).  There is still some question on whether Jefferson fathered any children with his slaves, but it doesn't matter to me.  Jefferson tried to free the slaves in the Declaration of Independence — it was South Carolina that refused to sign the Declaration with the slavery clause.  To call Jefferson a misogynist is disingenuous at best.  As well, to ignore the times and context of Jefferson's life is to choose self-righteousness over reality.  What is your contribution to the liberty of the People?  It will never come close to Jefferson's...  Honor that.

Right on, Christopher!  It is not for a lack of trying — quotes from Mises, Hayek, Locke, Blackstone, Spooner, Bastiat, et al, do all have comments from Waffler and RBE — the same old song.  Their confusion stems from the idea that the government is supposed to be a charity — I suppose because they do not believe that people are charitable on their own.  They insist that problems must be solved by government — not to address the causes of the problems. 

Socialists need problems — that is why they try to make your responsibilities theirs.  If everyone is taking care of themselves and others, what do we need government bureaucrats for?  It is also interesting that these folks also bad-mouth Christianity at every turn.  They have no conception of the total output and goodwill of the nation's congregations!  The government could never and never does come close to that. 

And all this push for universal health care is more akin to insisting that we all be treated as cattle being prepared for market.  Why are we copying communist rules for administration of a free people?  I do not want government health care — they are killers!  I will take care of my own health, and if I need help, I will find someone who isn't beholden to the sick-care industry.

Not a lie.  Virginia law prohibited the freeing of slaves.  Jefferson treated his slaves well, and they were lucky to have him as their master.  Had his slavery clause been included in the Declaration of Independence, his slaves would have been free. (!!)

Succinctly put!  And therein lies our dilemma — we must apply our perpetual attention upon our representatives to keep them in check.

Trade is the lifeblood of civilization — stop the flow and commit suicide.

Which is why a republican form of government keeps power decentralized and liberty maximized.  With every new 'emergency' the lust for power takes advantage — no one's liberties are safe.

Succinctly put!  This is the quintessential argument for a republican form of government.

The smiling face of fascism.

Such is the way of war.

How apropos for today's pandemic global lockdown.  Let's hope this is the beginning of the end.

I like "their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests" — Right On!  The global pandemic response is just another prime example — watch for all the elitists pushing their globalist agendas during times of crisis, arbitrarily claiming power to dictate to the masses what they can and cannot do.  Very dangerous precedents are being set here.

A socially engineered society (i.e. socialism) employs a great number of analysts that develop mathematical models to predict human behavior.  In order to promote or deter certain behaviors, these models are tweaked to show extreme possibilities of end-of-world scenarios.  Time and time again these reports are used as a basis for authoritarian measures to assume power and funnel rivers of energy/wealth to themselves while taking power from the people.  Thus we see governments taking advantage of the pandemic situation and borrowing trillions to fund projects that have nothing to do with the pandemic.  The goal of the statist authoritarians is to get people to obey, by any means necessary.  Never let a crisis go to waste...

Will the authoritarian response to the WuFlu pandemic do more damage than good?  Can we as a populace be informed and act accordingly?  Must government authorities assume power to dictate in the name of public safety?  Who benefits most by breaking people economically and making them dependent upon government?  How to stop unconstitutional power grabs during states of emergency?  Our rights and freedoms are most important in times of emergency, they are not to be laid down — ever.