Ten years ago, we learned that the fastest way to pass a bad law is to call it the ‘Patriot Act’ and force Congress to vote on it in the immediate wake of a horrible attack on the United States. The irony is that there is really very little about the Patriot Act that is patriotic. Instead, it has turned out to be yet another tool the government is using to erode privacy, individual freedom and the Constitution itself. Only Ron Paul has had the courage to point out the way the patriot act is eroding our liberties. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum support this serious violation of our rights.

Benjamin Franklin had it right:

‘Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety’.

Absolutely, protecting the American people from those who would do us harm is the federal government’s most basic duty. Everyone gets that. But when harm is done, as on 9-11, it is the nature of government to ask for more power and more authority in order to protect us. That’s how we get laws like the Patriot Act.

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More than 50 years after Sam Cooke first sang about his educational deficiencies, many American teens “don’t know much about history.”  Or so their latest test scores suggest.

Only 12 percent of all 12^th graders are “proficient” or “advanced” in U.S. History according to the 2010 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).  And less than half of all high school seniors display even a “basic” knowledge about American History.

The latest NAEP scores for civics are almost as bad:  Less than two-thirds of all seniors show a “basic” understanding of our system of government.  And a 2010 study commissioned by the American Enterprise Institute concluded that “civics, once the cornerstone of public education, has fallen off the radar” as teachers have felt increasing pressure to show progress in other areas.

That many educators today give considerable attention to other subjects would not disturb America’s founders.  While we tend to think of them largely as political figures, America’s founders recognized that there are many higher and grander pursuits in life than those in the political realm.

This no doubt explains why the scientifically-curious Ben Franklin went outside in a thunderstorm with his kite – and why the educationally-minded Thomas Jefferson had his gravestone identify him as the founder of the University of Virginia, but not as the third president of the United States.

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Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal:

What followed was a list of grievances that made the case for separation from the mother country, and this part was fiery. Jefferson was a cold man who wrote with great feeling. He trained his eyes on the depredations of King George III: “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns. . . . He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compete the work of death, desolation and tyranny . . .”

Members of the Congress read and reread, and the cutting commenced. Sometimes they cooled Jefferson down. He wrote that the king “suffered the administration of justice totally to cease in some of these states.” They made it simpler: “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice.”

“For Thomas Jefferson it became a painful ordeal, as change after change was called for and approximately a quarter of what he had written was cut entirely.” I quote from the historian David McCullough’s “John Adams,” as I did last year at this time, because everything’s there.

Jefferson looked on in silence. Mr. McCullough notes that there is no record that he uttered a word in protest or in defense of what he’d written. Benjamin Franklin, sitting nearby, comforted him: Edits often reduce things to their essence, don’t fret. It was similar to the wisdom Scott Fitzgerald shared with the promising young novelist Thomas Wolfe 150 years later: Writers bleed over every cut, but at the end they don’t miss what was removed, don’t worry.

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On April 15th, it is always a worthy enterprise to reflect on one of the major motivations of the American Patriots that caused them to break away from England. Of course, I am referring to “Taxation Without Representation.” Today, we know from the Tea Parties multiplying around the Country that Gerald Berzan is quite to say right that “Taxation with representation ain’t so hot either.” Perhaps that is why Douglas Adams declared that he was “spending a year dead for tax reasons.”

In that lively spirit, I give you my Top 10 Anti-Taxation Quotes with my annotations:

No. 10.

“In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin. It is hard to start anywhere else. The little known full quote is “Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” The Founders, who framed a Constitution to protect us from government, did not dare consider an income tax. Franklin obviously did not trust future politicians.

No. 9.

“I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.” Milton Friedman. The 1st of two Friedman quotes in this countdown brings up the question: Why the Republican Party is (or should be) so anti-tax? Franklin obviously warned us. Friedman accepted his warning and knew that unless we fought them at every turn, taxes would be more than inevitable.

No. 8.

“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.” Legendary Judge Learned Hand. I guess it turns out Joe Biden was wrong?

No. 7.

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.” The first of John Marshall’s 2 quotes in the countdown: Simply stated, but sadly not well understood: that maxim also applies to income as well – which is why higher rates result in less tax revenue. Later Alan Greenspan would say that “Whatever you tax, you get less of.” It REALLY is that simple – if only our politicans would learn that lesson.

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