George Washington said:
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master"
Excellent!
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
Thomas Jefferson, (Attributed)
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)
if only someone had listened 
When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1821
I wonder what our fore fathers would think of the affairs of the past few decades.
Quite stunning the shift to centralized power.
Perhaps another 'separation' is in the offing.....
