The Eternal Wisdom of Frederick Douglass

The Eternal Wisdom of Frederick Douglass

by Tara L Daves on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 10:43pm

Instead of looking to such men as the "reverend" Al Sharpton, Malcolm X, and Barack Hussein Obama, why don't we step back a bit in time, to one of the wisest men of any color to ever walk the planet?

Regarding the hope that the government will provide better/faster/cheaper health care equally to all people: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

Regarding those who dare to question the constitutionality of the recently-passed "health care" law: "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle."

And, I would add, this also applies to those who want coverage without earning or paying for it; to paraphrase the apostle Paul, "you don't work, you don't eat."

Regarding the fantasy that government can (or should) fix things: "In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us... I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! ... And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ... your interference is doing him positive injury."

Regarding the current state of tyranny in our nation: "Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Regarding the tea party/9-12/constitutional patriot movement: "To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason."

Also regarding the tea party/9-12/constitutional patriot movement: "Be not discouraged. There is a future for you. . . . The resistance encountered now predicates hope. . . . Only as we rise . . . do we encounter opposition."

Regarding those who falsely witness (i.e., LIE) concerning the tea party/9-12/constitutional patriot movement: "They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me"

Regarding the delusion of financial "stimulus" being effective at recovering our economy: "The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery." (Rephrase as, "The nation's prosperity cannot be purchased by the people's taxation," with sincere apologies to Mr. Douglass!)

Regarding the utter disregard for the truth (i.e., LIES) rampant in the current administration: "Truth is proper and beautiful in all times and in all places."

Regarding the shock that the socialist government machine will get in the next few elections: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man."

Finally, the doozy, which needs no introduction: "He who is whipped oftenest, is whipped easiest."

Quotes from: http://www.gaia.com/quotes/Frederick_Douglass

My thanks to Joe Fitzgerald, author of the column "President Obama cares little for we the people" in the Boston Herald, who quoted Frederick Douglass and therefore led me to this idea: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view/20100327president_obama_cares_little_for_we_the_people/

Many thanks also to Mychal Massie, chairman of Project 21, for linking the above article on Facebook- another wisdom-filled man whom I have quoted elsewhere once or twice.