Thomas Jefferson weighs in on the status of health care

[Land Shark]

We can't expect extreme specificity given Jefferson passed away nearly 200 years ago (on July 4, 1826, the same day as John Adams, and on the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration Regarding the Reasons and Right of Revolution, now called "Declaration of Independence"). But here's a quote from Jefferson on health, which might be profitably combined with the inalienable rights including but not limited to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

“Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.” --Thomas Jefferson

Yeah, everybody knows that without health, one's wealth and liberty can't be enjoyed, and one isn't happy.

You got to wonder at people who claim health care's "not a right."

Late in his life, Jefferson wrote to a friend and begged confidentiality until after he died so he could live out his later years "in peace" but Jefferson intimated that if people just followed the logic of the Declaration, real democracy, freedom and equality would inevitably be at hand. I think his quote here lays out another guidestar for us to consider following.

[Gravel Democrat]

1. This too-"If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take..."

"If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."

That was the one I was looking for, but so much of what he said is relevant to today.

His was one of the smartest minds in the history of the world!


"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread."

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds... have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for< another>... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people' (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition."

http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quotes_by/thomas+jefferson

[Land Shark]

2. Well, as JFK said about another gathering of intelligence in the White House

..A group of Nobel laureates gathered at the White House he called the greatest gathering of intelligence in the White House ever, save perhaps when Thomas Jefferson dined there, alone.

...THe only human with 2 works of architecture on the world's list of greatest architectural achievements.

..The primary author of the Declaration - the world's most influential, and probably the world's most important, political document. (And the guts of it are all in a single paragraph, paragraph 2!)

More than doubled the territory of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase

...Founder of the University of Virginia, the world's first secular university without ties to any denomination...
and

...There were several scientific societies of the time, in botany, astronomy and several other fields in which Jefferson was explicitly recognized for achievement in those fields as well.

...President of the United States, and winner of what's called the Second Revolution of the United States - the election of 1800

The above is about 1/2 the highlights and not necessarily all of the greatest. but what jefferson wanted on his tombstone, after he chose to spend his last minutes alone with his slaves, who were very much more like family for him (he never remarried but apparently did have children with his lover - a slave} was "Founder of the University of virginia and author of the Declaration of Independence"

It not mentioned often enough that not only was TJ bankrupt at the end of his life but through his life (the problem got worse) because of his reluctant devotion to duty ( he very reluctantly allowed his name for president and at the time candidates DID NOT CAMPAIGN). BEing mortgaged to the hilt, and slaves being legally "property" especially for a working farm like Monticello, he couldn't let more than a token one or two go without engaging in (certainly) grounds for foreclosure of all he had, and (probably) risking criminal charges for 'damage' to property. When all was said and done after an attempt to release slaves, the slaves would have been slaves only under another master, after being repossessed by the bank.

It's too bad the charge of "slaveholder" is held so much against Jefferson when the slaves never could have been free, even had Jefferson released them. Perhaps he sensed this all along, and it may explain why, at the age of 26 and upon first election to the Virginia house of burgesses, his first bill was to make slavery illegal in the state of Virginia.

Imagine that, it would be like a Rockefeller or something proposing to do away with the institution of corporations.

[2 Much Tribulation]

3. kick

[Progressive_In_NC]

4. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only......

The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign affairs. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our General Government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.


To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, 'to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.' For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union.


I found these two very interesting.