Trust

From "The Oxford Book of Aphorisms"

A man usually has no idea what is being said about him. The entire town may be slandering him, but if he has no friends he will never hear of it.

Balzac

The value of a Republican form of government, is that representatives are given a level of trust from their people to make decisions for them. This trust must be maintained through openness with the people on what the representatives are doing. And, the representatives must hear from their people with a high level of transparency. Democracy encourages a pro-active citizenry such that the trust can be maintained.

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Liberty and law

From "The Oxford Book of Aphorisms"

The sense of liberty is a message read between the lines of constraint. Real liberty is as transparent, as odourless and tasteless, as water.

Michael Frayn, Constructions, 1974

Laws always are a constraint on the lives of its subjects. Liberty is freedom from law. Can a nation set at liberty its own citizens? Only with faith in the nature of man; in lawlessness, imperfections in the citizenry are not restrained.

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Patriotism

From www.poets.org

Patriotism
by Sir Walter Scott

Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

Whether in peace or war, patriotism runs deep in the proud citizen. His land (country) lives whole in his heart, and nothing escapes its riches, honor, fruit, fortitude and well-being. When times are threatening to his land, he takes a stand and says "no more." This is ours, and you can't take it away from me.

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