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littleharbour
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 Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 1:22 pm Post subject: Destroying Liberty |
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The brilliant Walter Williams, cuts to the chase:
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/10/01/destroying_liberty
| Quote: | Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Destroying Liberty
by Walter E. Williams
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not now, the normal state of human affairs. The normal state for the ordinary person is tyranny, arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own government. While imperfect in its execution, the founders of our nation sought to make an exception to this ugly part of mankind's history. Unfortunately, at the urging of the American people, we are unwittingly in the process of returning to mankind's normal state of affairs.
Americans demand that Congress spend trillions of dollars on farm subsidies, business bailouts, education subsidies, Social Security, Medicare and prescription drugs and other elements of a welfare state. The problem is that Congress produces nothing. Whatever Congress wishes to give, it has to first take other people's money. Thus, at the root of the welfare state is the immorality of intimidation, threats and coercion backed up with the threat of violence by the agents of the U.S. Congress. In order for Congress to do what some Americans deem as good, it must first do evil. It must do that which if done privately would mean a jail sentence; namely, take the property of one American to give to another.
According to a Washington Post article (6/22/05), there were nearly 35,000 highly paid registered lobbyists in Washington in 2004 who spent $2.1 billion lobbying the White House, Congress and various agencies on behalf of various interest groups. Political action committees, private donors and companies give billions of dollars to political campaigns. My question to you: Do you think that these people are spending billions of dollars to assist presidents and congressmen to better perform their sworn oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the U.S. Constitution? If you do, you're a fine candidate for a straitjacket. For the most part, the money is being spent to get politicians and government officials to use their coercive power to create a favor or special privilege for one American at the expense of some other American.
If we Americans didn't give Washington such enormous control over our lives, I doubt whether there would be 10 percent of the money currently spent on lobbying and campaign contributions. This enormous control that Congress has over our lives also goes a long way toward explaining much of the government corruption that we see in Washington.
If the average American were asked whether he wishes to return to mankind's normal state of affairs featured by arbitrary abuse, control and government dictates, I am sure he would find such a suggestion repulsive. But if you were to ask, say, the average senior citizen whether Social Security, Medicare and prescription drug subsidies should be continued, he would probably answer yes. The same would be true if you asked a college professor whether higher education should continue to be subsidized, or a farmer or a dairyman whether their products should be subsidized, or a manufacturer whether there should be tariffs and quotas on foreign products that compete with his product. The problem with congressmen producing favors and privileges to all interest groups is that it creates what none of us wants: massive control, numerous dictates and micromanagement of our lives.
There is no question that if one were to ask whether we Americans are moving towards more liberty or more government control over our lives, the answer would unambiguously be the latter -- more government control over our lives. We might have reached a point where the trend is irreversible and that is a true tragedy for if liberty is lost in America, it will be lost for all times and all places. |
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 DacreJoined: 17 Dec 2003 Total posts: 10247 Location: Niagara Peninsula Gender: Unknown
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| Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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| And once again Walter E. Williams makes the case in simple terms. Mr. Williams has a very good way with his explanations. Unfortunately he gets very little exposure. He gets no MSM exposure at all to my knowledge. When the basics are framed this way pretty much everyone can understand the principles protecting freedom. And big government is the problem not the solution. Good catch LH. |
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Edward Kennedy
Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Total posts: 16409 Gender: Unknown
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| Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Dacre wrote: | | And once again Walter E. Williams makes the case in simple terms. Mr. Williams has a very good way with his explanations. Unfortunately he gets very little exposure. He gets no MSM exposure at all to my knowledge. When the basics are framed this way pretty much everyone can understand the principles protecting freedom. And big government is the problem not the solution. Good catch LH. |
Actually WW is not getting exposure because he is discriminated against by the system, not ebcause he is black but because he is common sense Conservative.
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Yoda
Joined: 18 Jan 2006 Total posts: 15085 Gender: Unknown
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| Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Universal suffrage is the achilles heal of democracy. |
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AMAI
Joined: 07 Sep 2008 Total posts: 548 Location: Toronto Gender: Female
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| Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks for posting this. It's great to read a rational explanation. Let's pass it on to all our friends wherever they may be. Get the message out there to our "regular" pals. Freedom is worth fighting for, it may be a long road but we should not give up. |
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Edward Kennedy
Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Total posts: 16409 Gender: Unknown
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| Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="AMAI"]Thanks for posting this. It's great to read a rational explanation. Let's pass it on to all our friends wherever they may be. Get the message out there to our "regular" pals. Freedom is worth fighting for, it may be a long road but we should not give up.[/quot
But you forget that the mass of society is a mindless grazing herd of lieberal deniers, blamers and projectionists who reject anything that does not fit into their brain dead egalitarianistic pipe dream of lies and deceptions.
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littleharbour
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| Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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| The sad thing is, that Canadians are even more willing to sacrifice their freedom to the nanny state for an increasingly mediocre level of government service. Government always sucks you in with grandiose announcements of how they will make your life better by giving you something for "free", and you only find out afterward what the freebies actually cost and that, as a result, they must be rationed. This state of affairs was predicted by those who fought against removing land ownership as a requirement for the vote. Those who don't pay taxes [and at the time it was the landowners who paid the tax] will always use the government to extort money from those who do pay tax. Although the supply of those tax dollars is limited, the greed of the have-nots is insatiable. |
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Edward Kennedy
Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Total posts: 16409 Gender: Unknown
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| Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| littleharbour wrote: | | The sad thing is, that Canadians are even more willing to sacrifice their freedom to the nanny state for an increasingly mediocre level of government service. Government always sucks you in with grandiose announcements of how they will make your life better by giving you something for "free", and you only find out afterward what the freebies actually cost and that, as a result, they must be rationed. This state of affairs was predicted by those who fought against removing land ownership as a requirement for the vote. Those who don't pay taxes [and at the time it was the landowners who paid the tax] will always use the government to extort money from those who do pay tax. Although the supply of those tax dollars is limited, the greed of the have-nots is insatiable. |
Translated, the "have nots" are those who will not work, and also consist of turd world peoples.
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littleharbour
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| Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Canadians were in love with socialist handouts long before any significant number of third world immigrants came here. If anything, these folks have just followed the lead of the malcontents who were already here. Until the left-tards explained to them how mean and racist Canada really is, most of these folks would have thought they had won the lottery by being permitted to come to Canada. |
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Edward Kennedy
Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Total posts: 16409 Gender: Unknown
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| Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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| littleharbour wrote: | | Canadians were in love with socialist handouts long before any significant number of third world immigrants came here. If anything, these folks have just followed the lead of the malcontents who were already here. Until the left-tards explained to them how mean and racist Canada really is, most of these folks would have thought they had won the lottery by being permitted to come to Canada. |
True BUT then there existed a stigma, a sense of moral duty, if you will, to work for your living, long before damned socialist scum glorified the welfare lifestyle.
Even today, I note that immigrants from specific parts of the world are alerady conditioned to work for a living while others are ready to jump on the welfare bandwagon. Others are criminally inclined, others are civil and law abiding.
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AMAI
Joined: 07 Sep 2008 Total posts: 548 Location: Toronto Gender: Female
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| Posted: 10/ 01/ 08 10:00 pm Post subject: |
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Well, look. If America is willing to cut its nose off to spite its face, does that mean we have to give up? I realize that the folks in your other board lives and in "real life" might be hard to convince, but you may as well spread the word. There are others out there who agree about the economy, even if they disagree with you (or with me) about "beliefs" and "convictions."
Just because the US decides to become socialist doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying to get Canadians to agree to try laissez-faire capitalism. |
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