Now If Only Politicians Would Think Like This..

A few quotes from Thomas Jefferson:

"I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans" --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:77

"Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites: peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson to Henry Middleton, 1813. ME 13:202

"I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1803. ME 10:438

"Freedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus I deem [one of the] essential principles of our government." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801. ME 3:322

"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations--entangling alliances with none, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801. ME 3:321

"I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect." --Thomas Jefferson to Robert Livingston, 1801.

"The exercise of a free trade with all parts of the world [is] possessed by [a people] as of natural right, and [only through a] law of their own [can it be] taken away or abridged." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. (*) ME 1:189, Papers 1:123

"We had better have no treaty than a bad one." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1807. ME 1:467