Quote of the Day

“As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.”

― George Washington: "Letter from George Washington to the Roman Catholics in the United States," May 15th 1790

Let's not forget:

Your love of liberty - your respect for the laws - your habits of industry - and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.

--George Washington, letter to the Residents of Boston, October 27, 1789

How can you run a public policy based upon fiction?

In this case, a bogus quote from George Washington:

I guess not basing arguments on actual facts is part of Conservativism 101.

The words are part of a well-worn favorite conservative passage known as the "Liberty Teeth" quote. It reads in its entirety:

Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon, and citizen's firearms are indelibly related. From the moment the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference; they deserve a place of honor with all that's good. When firearms go, all goes; we need them every hour.

The quote is a hoax, and a well-known one. As Extra! pointed out ("The Right's Library of Fake Quotes," 4/10). It has been widely debunked, including in Playboy magazine, where it had been quoted (12/95) and subsequently become the subject of a lengthy correction  (12/95), after the editor of the Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia called it "either a complete fabrication or a case of misattribution.

The "liberty teeth" quote is so well known as a fraud that the pro-gun Second Amendment Foundation, in inveighing against the use of bogus quotes as "counterproductive," to the cause, cites it as the prime example, and "perhaps the most infamous bogus saying attributed to a Founding Father."

Knowing how to source check is a research basic!

Quote of the Day

"Guard against the postures of pretended patriotism."

 —George Washington, Farewell Address, September 17, 1796.

Even better from the same source:

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.