When I was a kid, my mother, Mrs. Underwood, would sometimes say of people who exhibited no readily discernible signs of culture or refinement, "He knows about as much as a pig knows about Sunday." Today, in addition to those who know little or nothing about Sunday, and perhaps this is no coincidence, there is an ever-growing and alarming number of people who know little or nothing about the founding principles upon which our nation and government rests. They mistakenly see the government, federal, state and local, as something outside themselves. They feel the government, like a rich benefactor, owes them a magical, fairy tale life in which there is never-ending prosperity and happiness. And when they hit a bump in the road, they squeal to the government for help and make loud accusations about everyone's part in the catastrophe but their own. Our government, in case anyone has forgotten, is a "government of the people, by the people, for the people." It is not the president's government. It is not the congress' government. It is not the U.S. Supreme Court's government. It is our government. And because it belongs to us, we are the ones obligated, above all others, to take care of it. Don't be deceived. No man-made institution remains in a fixed state. Dynamic influences, sinister, benevolent or otherwise, are continually altering it. Be assured that if we continue to take ourselves out of the process of government, we will soon find that we have lost our place in it.
"The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its soverign control over its government."
--Franklin Roosevelt
"No government has ever been beneficent when the attitude of government was that it was taking care of the people. The only freedom consists in the people taking care of the government."
--Woodrow Wilson
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