PATRIOTISM

"Without the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, we are defending dirt."
- Timbuk3

According to John Ashcroft:

"[T]o those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid the terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil."

According to Hermann Göring:

"Naturally the common people don't want war. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is to tell them that they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism."

According to our Founding Fathers:

"The contest is not between us and them, but between good and evil and if those who would fight against evil adopt the ways of evil; evil wins." - Thomas Jefferson

Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!
-Thomas Jefferson

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
- James Madison

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
-George Washington

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.
- Samuel Adams

The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
- John Adams

When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.
- Thomas Jefferson

One more:

"We've got a lot of work to do."

- bush 41, on hearing that Florida had been called for Gore, not his son. What work was left to do, george?