Gail,
I totally agree with your sentiment and I am a huge fan of Thomas Jefferson (along with many other of our Founding Fathers).
However, I must caution that the authenticity of that particular quote is in question. You can read about it here under disputes:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
Still, your point remains just as valid. On the subject of a central bank like the Federal Reserve, Thomas Jefferson did say, "[The] Bank of the United States... is one of the most deadly hostility existing, against the principles and form of our Constitution... An institution like this, penetrating by its branches every part of the Union, acting by command and in phalanx, may, in a critical moment, upset the government. I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries. What an obstruction could not this bank of the United States, with all its branch banks, be in time of war! It might dictate to us the peace we should accept, or withdraw its aids. Ought we then to give further growth to an institution so powerful, so hostile?" --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1803.
And he said, "The maxim of buying nothing without the money in our pockets to pay for it would make of our country one of the happiest on earth." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Donald, 1787
And he said, "We are now taught to believe that legerdemain tricks upon paper can produce as solid wealth as hard labor in the earth. It is vain for common sense to urge that
nothing can produce but
nothing; that it is an idle dream to believe in a philosopher's stone which is to turn everything into gold, and to redeem man from the original sentence of his Maker, 'in the sweat of his brow shall he eat his bread.'" --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816.
And on the cure for such problens he said, "I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820
And he said, "We are now trusting to those who are against us in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of our youth... This canker is eating on the vitals of our existence, and if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy." --Thomas Jefferson to James Breckinridge, 1821
And he also said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816
Clearly, Mr. Jefferson was prophetic; he did understand the fundamental problems we face and tried to warn of them. Imagine the horror he would have felt seeing interviews of significant portions of our population that can't even correctly identify the political positions on the issues of the politicians they profess to support with almost radical devotion.
I wish more would raise their voices on the issues as you have here. Hopefully, such open dialog would help educate others to the funamental truths that were obvious to so many of our Founding Fathers over 200 years ago without AC, and are yet un-recognized by so many today.
Ok Steve, I'm done pontificating. You can hit the switch now!
