Saturday, September 21, 2013
Good Words
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is error alone that needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”
~Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814
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2 comments:
Ah, yet another out-of-context quote. And a misquote at that.
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the Despot abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them: and to effect this they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man, into mystery & jargon unintelligible to all mankind & therefore the safer engine for their purposes.
[As a description of the history of the Roman Catholic Church and similar "state church" abuses, I am in complete agreement with Jefferson here.]
…
When I look around me for security against these seductions, I find it in the wide spread of our Agricultural citizens, in their unsophisticated minds, their independence and their power if called on to crush the Humists of our cities, and to maintain the principles which severed us from England. I see our safety in the extent of our confederacy, and in the probability that in the proportion of that the sound parts will always be sufficient to crush local poisons.
Hey, a post against rent seeking that Mark conflates into anti-religion instead.
Is there any quote that Mark can't mis-read?
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