The Linton Family is in for a Fun Summer

We found out on Valentines Day that Peter Joslyn (Lynchburgh, Virginia) asked our Erin to be his wife. She accepted. They are planning to be married this summer. We are planning a party!

Good Qualities for a President

"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in humble and enduring scenes of private life. Pious, just humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform dignified, and commanding; his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example lasting.... The purity of his private charter gave effulgence to his public virtues...."
--John Marshall, official eulogy of George Washington, delivered by Richard Henry Lee, 26 December 1799

Sobering Quote

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, 13 November 1787

Something to Ponder

"This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a ban of brethren, united to each other by the strongest of ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties."
--John Jay, Federalist No. 2

Debt and Slavery

1My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger,2if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth,3then do this, my son, and save yourself, for you have come into the hand of your neighbor: go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor.4 Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber;5save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
Proverbs 6:1-5

15 Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm, but he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure.
Proverbs 11:15

18One who lacks sense gives a pledge and puts up security in the presence of his neighbor.
Proverbs 17:18

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kercheval, 12 July 1816

"Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them." --Thomas Jefferson

Wisdom literature is complex. Wisdom literature does not provide black and white rules. It provides wisdom. There is enough admonition in Proverbs to teach us that incurring debt is typically not a good thing. It is a binding of our future. It makes us slaves to our creditors. The U.S. Government is proposing through this massive bail out to impose on this nation trillions of dollars of debt. Whether we like it or not, that debt will fall on us, and not only us, our children as well. The U.S. Government is seeking to sell us and our children even more into slavery. The founding fathers, as statesmen, understood this principle. I just wish our modern politicians understood this concept.

Home of the free and the brave?