Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.
Interpretation
The government can only help its citizens if it also has the power to influence or regulate them.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson suggests that the effectiveness of a government in providing support or benefits to its citizens is directly linked to its ability to exert influence or control over them. It highlights the balance between governance and individual freedoms, implying that the government's authority must be exercised with consideration for the well-being of the people, ensuring that it acts in their best interest while maintaining order and structure within society.
In practice
Using this quote during a political debate to emphasize the responsibilities of government.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
Only 4 sets of people can vote for the PDP: (1) those who are intellectually blind; (2) those who are blinded by ethnicity; (3) those who are blinded by corruption and therefore afraid of the unknown, should power change hands; and finally (4) those who are suffering from a combination of the above terminal sicknesses.
Elections are always a Rorschach test - people look at the results and see what they want to see.
And as a matter of fact, governments don't act, governments only react. The bankers make the decisions, and then governments decide how are we going to adjust to this. Government can't do anything unless the bank gives them the money to do it.
I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine - not Russia - attacked us in 2016.
With Yeltsin, the Soviet Union broke apart, the country was totally mismanaged, the constitution was not respected by the regions of Russia. The army, education and health systems collapsed. People in the West quietly applauded, dancing with and around Yeltsin. I conclude therefore that we should not pay too much attention to what the West is saying.
The Republican Party has become overwhelmingly so extreme that it's hardly a traditional political party anymore.
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