Just ran across this. Never saw it before. Jefferson had an incredible grasp of the evils of Gubmint. Damn near prophecy, isn't it?
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If we run into such debts 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 callings and
our creeds, as the people of England are,
our people, like them, must come to labor
sixteen hours in the twenty-four, and give
the earnings of fifteen of these to the
government for their debts and daily
expenses;
And the sixteenth being insufficient to
afford us bread, we must live, as they do
now, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no
time to think, no means of calling the
mismanagers to account; but be glad to
obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to
rivet their chains around 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 a
second, that second for a third, and so on
'til the bulk of the society is reduced to be
mere automatons of misery, to have no
sensibilities left but for sinning and
suffering...
And the forehorse of this frightful team is
public debt. Taxation follows that, and in
its train wretchedness and oppression.
~Thomas Jefferson
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If we run into such debts 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 callings and
our creeds, as the people of England are,
our people, like them, must come to labor
sixteen hours in the twenty-four, and give
the earnings of fifteen of these to the
government for their debts and daily
expenses;
And the sixteenth being insufficient to
afford us bread, we must live, as they do
now, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no
time to think, no means of calling the
mismanagers to account; but be glad to
obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to
rivet their chains around 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 a
second, that second for a third, and so on
'til the bulk of the society is reduced to be
mere automatons of misery, to have no
sensibilities left but for sinning and
suffering...
And the forehorse of this frightful team is
public debt. Taxation follows that, and in
its train wretchedness and oppression.
~Thomas Jefferson