By ignorance and cupidity, a secret war, fermenting in the bosom of every state, has separated citizen from citizen; and the same society has divided itself into oppressors and oppressed, into masters and slaves; by these, the heads of a nation, sometimes insolent and audacious, have forged its chains within its own bowels; and mercenary avarice has founded political despotism.
C. -F. Volney, The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires (1793; first English-language edition, 1802)
“Before hastening to secure a possible reward of five taels by dragging an unobservant person away from a falling building, examine well his features lest you find, when too late, that it is one to whom you are indebted for double that amount.”
Ernest Bramah, The Wallet of Kai Lung
Click on over to Townhall.com for an expanded discussion of Wednesday’s Common Sense. Then come back here for more reading:
Hillary Clinton:
Emanuel Rahm:
* As I mentioned in Wednesday’s Common Sense, and in full disclosure, my brother, Mark Jacob, works for the Tribune.
“An Avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men tostretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He thatwould make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression;for if he violates this duty he a establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
Thomas Paine (1795)
A behind-the-scenes look at a fascinating documentary:
And the documentary in question is…
“The Bromide does his thinking by syndicate. He follows the main-traveled roads, he goes with the crowd. In a word, they all think and talk alike — one may predicate their opinion upon any given subject. They follow custom and costume, they obey the Law of Averages. They are, intellectually, all peas in the same conventional pod, unenlightened, prosaic, living by rule and rote. They have their hair cut every month and their minds keep regular office-hours.”
Gelett Burgess, Are You a Bromide?, 1907.
“Fatality is the universal and rooted prejudice of the East. ‘It was written,’ is there the answer to every thing. Hence result an unconcern and apathy, the most powerful impediments to instruction and civilization.”
C. F. Volney, The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires (1793; first English-language edition, 1802)
“If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.”
Gelett Burgess, American humorist.
“However deep you dig a well it affords no refuge in the time of flood.”
Ernest Bramah, Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat, “The Story of Tong So, the Averter of Calamities” (1928)
Thursday‘s Common Sense was too big a story to stay under 300 words. So, click on over to Townhall and get a bigger picture. If you come back here, you can follow the links to more on this curious conflict in American society, the conflict over “Little Free Libraries”: