"Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet choose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to exalt it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislature and ruler, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; … that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; and therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust or emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religions opinion, is depriving him injudiciously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow-citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emolumerits, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminals who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, … and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate ; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

* A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, Chapter 82 (1779)"

Still very pertinent in today's political climate.

Need to go and buy a book about Thomas Jefferson now He seemed to be a somewhat contradictory bloke.

The man is clearly a pinko liberal Marxist trying to impose UN rule and socialist free healthcare while spreading Gestapo propaganda about global warming and the uselessness of .50 cal machine guns. This thread should be locked before Aimail's attempt at mind-control succeeds.

His middle name was Mehmet, you know...

"Only those afraid of the truth seek to silence debate, intimidate those with whom they disagree, or slander their ideological counterparts. Those who know they are right have no reason to stifle debate because they realize that all opposing arguments will ultimately be overcome by fact."

Smart man that Jefferson, wat wat.

My favorite president and one I admire most. Funny thing is, apparently he was a poor public speaker and not very charismatic. He probably would have not made it far in this age of TV.

Kind of off-topic, but if you want to get a feel for the time period, the John Adams mini-series from HBO is really excellent, especially the first several episodes, and Thomas Jefferson is in it and has a lot of interesting conversations with Adams and others about the role of government and revolution.

I recommend that every Brit here watch it to get an idea of why Americans seem so crazy to them.

Yes a very smart man. Just a few of his Quotes.


A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.


All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.


Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.


Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.


Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it

I love reading stuff like this from back in the day. They used to wring every last drop out of the english language. How come nobody writes like this anymore?

I blame stinkin' Hemingway and Steinbeck. I'd rather read the instructions to my toaster.

i like this forum grants freedom of speech

quote:

Originally posted by raaaid:
i like this forum grants freedom of speech

This forum gives a platform, your freedom of speech/expression you were born with.

This platform is a privilege, not a right.

quote:

Originally posted by HayateAce:
"Only those afraid of the truth seek to silence debate, intimidate those with whom they disagree, or slander their ideological counterparts. Those who know they are right have no reason to stifle debate because they realize that all opposing arguments will ultimately be overcome by fact."

Anybody know the author?

I googled it and all I got was Glenn Beck whining about his corporate sponsors choosing to exercise their freedom of speech by not sponsoring him after he said Obama had a deep seated hatred of white people then said 60 seconds later "but I'm not saying that Obama hates white people."

I think he also said something along the lines of 'if you sacrifice liberty for the the sake of security you end up with neither'

quote:

Originally posted by Ba5tard5word:
I googled it and all I got was Glenn Beck whining about his corporate sponsors choosing to exercise their freedom of speech by not sponsoring him after he said Obama had a deep seated hatred of white people then said 60 seconds later "but I'm not saying that Obama hates white people."

That's a bit of misinformation smeared onto Fox and Beck himself by the MSM. Actually, Beck did not lose but a few, if any sponsors and continues to be heavily watched. Fox's income from sponsors was not affected in the least.