Founders Morning Quote

This was from Friday but I wanted to add a couple of thoughts and I didn't have the time.

"Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent."

--John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

One of the problems we have with a lot of political debate today is that we are debating from dueling definitions - take the discussion on "RINO"s. In this case, the debate needs to be on what defines "obliged" and "without consent". Is it consent when an elected body decides that they need to take more money from the governed for legislative pay raises when the governed are actually experiencing negative income growth?

This particular quote is basically the heart of the debate between the progressive movement and the conservative movement. For the progressive sees the sentence...

He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary.

as a justification for expanded government services (government health care for example) and expanded taxation.

The conservative sees this quote...

But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent,...

...as justification for fighting what they consider to be an unjust confiscation of individual property (whether it is real property or monetary property).

Yin and yang at work once again...