To the citizens of the United States by Thomas Paine
November 15, 1802

"But a faction, acting in disguise, was rising in America; they had lost sight of first principles. They were beginning to contemplate government as a profitable monopoly, and the people as hereditary property. It is, therefore, no wonder that the "Rights of Man" was attacked by that faction, and its author continually abused. But let them go on; give them rope enough and they will put an end to their own insignificance. There is too much common sense and independence in America to be long the dupe of any faction, foreign or domestic.

"But, in the midst of the freedom we enjoy, the licentiousness of the papers called Federal (and I know not why they are called so, for they are in their principles anti-federal and despotic), is a dishonor to the character of the country, and an injury to its reputation and importance abroad. They represent the whole people of America as destitute of public principle and private manners.

"As to any injury they can do at home to those whom they abuse, or service they can render to those who employ them, it is to be set down to the account of noisy nothingness. It is on themselves the disgrace recoils, for the reflection easily presents itself to every thinking mind, that those who abuse liberty when they possess it would abuse power could they obtain it; and, therefore, they may as well take as a general motto, for all such papers, we and our patrons are not fit to be trusted with power.

"There is in America, more than in any other country, a large body of people who attend quietly to their farms, or follow their several occupations; who pay no regard to the clamors of anonymous scribblers, who think for themselves, and judge of government, not by the fury of newspaper writers, but by the prudent frugality of its measures, and the encouragement it gives to the improvement and prosperity of the country; and who, acting on their own judgment, never come forward in an election but on some important occasion.

"When this body moves, all the little barkings of scribbling and witless curs pass for nothing. To say to this independent description of men, "You must turn out such and such persons at the next election, for they have taken off a great many taxes, and lessened the expenses of government, they have dismissed my son, or my brother, or myself, from a lucrative office, in which there was nothing to do"-is to show the cloven foot of faction, and preach the language of ill-disguised mortification.

"In every part of the Union, this faction is in the agonies of death, and in proportion as its fate approaches, gnashes its teeth and struggles. My arrival has struck it as with an hydrophobia, it is like the sight of water to canine madness."

"When the plan of the Federal Government, formed by this convention, was proposed and submitted to the consideration of the several States, it was strongly objected to in each of them. But the objections were not on anti-Federal grounds, but on constitutional points. Many were shocked at the idea of placing what is called executive power in the hands of a single individual. To them it had too much the form and appearance of a military government, or a despotic one.

"Others objected that the powers given to a President were too great, and that in the hands of an ambitious and designing man it might grow into tyranny as it did in England under Oliver Cromwell, and as it has since done in France. A republic must not only be so in its principles, but in its forms.

"The executive part of the Federal Government was made for a man, and those who consented, against their judgment, to place executive power in the hands of a single individual, reposed more on the supposed moderation of the person they had in view, than on the wisdom of the measure itself.

"Two considerations, however, overcame all objections. The one was the absolute necessity of a Federal Government.
The other, the rational reflections, that as government in America is founded on the representative system any error in the first essay could be reformed by the same quiet and rational process by which the Constitution was formed, and that either by the generation then living, or by those who were to succeed.

"If ever America lose sight of this principle, she will no longer be the land of liberty. The father will become the assassin of the rights of the son, and his descendants be a race of slaves.

"As many thousands who were minors are grown up to manhood since the name of Federalist began, it became necessary, for their information, to go back and show the origin of the name, which is now no longer what it originally was; but it was the more necessary to do this, in order to bring forward, in the open face of day, the apostasy of those who first called themselves Federalists.

"To them it served as a cloak for treason, a mask for tyranny. Scarcely were they placed in the seat of power and office, than federalism was to be destroyed, and the representative system of government, the pride and glory of America, and the palladium of her liberties, was to be over- thrown and abolished. The next generation was not to be free. The son was to bend his neck beneath the father's foot, and live, deprived of his rights, under hereditary control.

"Among the men of this apostate description, is to be ranked the ex-President John Adams. It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish in contempt. May such be the fate of all such characters."

That from 1802

AND

From 1999 Trial by Jury Conspiracy Murder Transcripts:

Q. Let me ask you finally -- this has
been a long road -- how you regard -- what is
your explanation for the fact that there has
been such little national media coverage of
these -- of this trial and this evidence and
this event here in this Memphis courtroom,
which is the first trial ever to be able to
produce evidence on this assassination --
what has happened here that Mighty Wurlitzer
is not sounding but is in fact totally
silent -- almost totally silent?

A. Oh, but -- as we know, silence can be
deafening. Disinformation is not only
getting certain things to appear in print,
it's also getting certain things not to
appear in print. I mean, the first -- the
first thing I would say as a way of
explanation is the incredibly powerful effect
of disinformation over a long period of time
that I mentioned before. For 30 years the
official line has been that James Earl Ray
killed Martin Luther King and he did it all
by himself. That's 30 years, not -- nothing
like the short period when the line was that
the Cubans raped the Angolan women. But for
30 years it's James Earl Ray killed Dr. King,
did it all by himself.

And when that is imprinted in the
minds of the general public for 30 years, if
somebody stood up and confessed and said: I
did it. Ray didn't do it, I did it. Here's
a movie. Here's a video showing me do it. 99
percent of the people wouldn't believe him
because it just -- it just wouldn't click in
the mind. It would just go right to -- it
couldn't be. It's just a powerful
psychological effect over 30 years of
disinformation that's been imprinted on the
brains of the -- the public. Something to
the country couldn't -- couldn't be.

Location, Location, Location.

I'm super glad wherever you are is still sane.. The little village my wife and I are in, is midway between Chicago and Milwaukee. Our area is OK.

Those two areas, are somewhat less than sane... more so than usual.

That's not an opinion of course.