“. . . it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the numbers of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
– Patrick Henry, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
Click here to view the full speech.
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Maybe I was a bit rough on the guy. We did get the constitution which offers a lot more freedom than some had ever known. I wouldn’t want to confuse him with Jesus though.
Thanks for the history lesson, Edward and hustleandfloe. I believe independent media is in the role of educator, not mere news, and Solari is providing the vehicle for that. I’m so grateful.
Dead on, Edward. That Patrick Henry was a large planter and slaveholder also meant that he was well familiar with global business of the day and it’s chief fuel, cheap labor input, makes this difficult to hear. But, a long time ago, I gave up on the hypocrisy angle – decrying hypocrisy among slaveholders is just too easy, whether people listen or not.
I do lean, though, on the words of the constitution and in such quotes as this one to oppose such men as these. This is the only country, I believe, where the oppressors also cede to oppressed people the greater weapon to fight with: truth spoken and documented publicly. They know the right words to say, but the truth will come to get them as we will all have to answer to it.
“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” Matt 7:21
Speaking of painful truths, this one from April 1994 (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=227162):
George A. Akerlof
University of California, Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Paul M. Romer
Stanford Graduate School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Abstract:
During the 1980s, a number of unusual financial crises occurred. In Chile, for example, the financial sector collapsed, leaving the government with responsibility for extensive foreign debts. In the United States, large numbers of government-insured savings and loans became insolvent – and the government picked up the tab. In Dallas, Texas, real estate prices and construction continued to boom even after vacancies had skyrocketed, and the suffered a dramatic collapse. Also in the United States, the junk bond market, which fueled the takeover wave, had a similar boom and bust.
In this paper, we use simple theory and direct evidence to highlight a common thread that runs through these four episodes. The theory suggests that this common thread may be relevant to other cases in which countries took on excessive foreign debt, governments had to bail out insolvent financial institutions, real estate prices increased dramatically and then fell, or new financial markets experienced a boom and bust. We describe the evidence, however, only for the cases of financial crisis in Chile, the thrift crisis in the United States, Dallas real estate and thrifts, and junk bonds.
Our theoretical analysis shows that an economic underground can come to life if firms have an incentive to go broke for profit at society’s expense (to loot) instead of to go for broke (to gamble on success). Bankruptcy for profit will occur if poor accounting, lax regulation, or low penalties for abuse give owners an incentive to pay themselves more than their firms are worth and then default on their debt obligations.
Working Paper Series
What a contradiction. If I read that correctly “temporal salvation” means saving one’s earthly life. In the rest of that speech he talks about the numbers of men at their disposal. Being as he was concerned about temporal salvation he wasn’t offering his own life for liberty, he was offering the lives of those other men so that he and his cronies had more liberty. It’s more like Give me liberty or give me war. For his part, he was willing to bear that on his conscience, know the numbers of the dead and provide for the war. He doesn’t say he is willing to die for liberty… What a hypocrite..he even makes himself to sound like Jesus as if it was a righteous thing or had something to do with eternal salvation.