A true friend

A true friend is the best possession.

Rightful Liberty

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.”

Cause and Effect

I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.

Lyrics to 'America'

America
by Steven Sondheim (born 3/22/1930)
for West Side Story (1957 Broadway lyrics)

Puerto Rico
You lovely island
Island of tropical breezes
Always the pineapples growing
Always the coffee blossoms blowing
And the money owing
And the baby's crying
And the people trying
I like the island Manhattan (I know you do)
Smoke on your pipe and put that in!
I like to be in America
Okay, buy me in America
Everything free in America
For a small fee in America
Buying on credit is so nice
One look at us and they charge twice
I have my own washing machine
What do you have don't you keep clean?
Skyscrapers bloom in America
Cadillacs zoom in America
Industry boom in America
12 in a room in America
Lots of new housing with more space
(Lots of doors slamming in our face)
I'll get a terrace apartment
Better you get rid of your accent
Life can be bright in America
If you can fight in America
Life is all right in America
If you're all white in America
America
La, la, la, la, la, la, America
America
Here you are free and you have pride
Long as you stay on your own side
Free to do anything you choose
Free to wait tables and shine shoes
Everywhere grime in America
Organized crime in America
Terrible time in America
You forget I'm in America
I think I'll go back to San Juan
I know a boat you can get on (bye, bye!)
Everyone there will give big cheer! (Hey)
Everyone there will have moved here

Source: https://www.westsidestory.com/america

Freedoms

Star Spangled Banner - verse 4

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto - “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Star Spangled Banner - verse 3

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Books

I cannot live without books.

Style v. Principle

In matters of style, swim with the current.</br>In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

Star Spangled Banner - verse 2

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
’Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!