HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

T.J., courtesy of wikipedia.

...and what better way to mark the occasion than with a medley of quotes by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote a certain document associated with this holiday.

Jefferson is widely recognized today to have been a flawed genius, speaking eloquently of liberty while holding slaves (and more), yet he was in many ways the poet of the revolution and an inspiration for many in generations to come who would struggle to expand the nation's promise.

Here's the Goat Rope version of his Greatest Hits, Vol. 1:

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED