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May 2, 2007Socialism really doesn’t work; cue the coupA democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. Check out this article on France and this one on Tony Blair’s legacy in the UK. In particular read the comments. I knew that France’s young people were horrendously unemployed, but I had no idea their tax rate was at 50%. As to England - and I love England - I’ve been reading for some time, now, about the frightening erosion of privacy in the UK, between ubiquitious CCTV’s everywhere, and bureaucrats who have the right to come into your house to make sure your furniture is upholstered in fire-retardant fabric, and we’ve all read about how their National Health Service has become an inefficient and ineffective nightmare. Socialism doesn’t work. And we recently voted in a bunch of people who seem to be committed to its precepts, and who eagerly run to meet with its practitioners while avoiding others. I am imagining that when England and France first embraced the welfare state, no one was thinking about the eventual loss of personal freedoms or the overabundance of taxpayer-funded bureaucratic busybodies who would loom outside their doors (or inside, as the case may be). And Americans aren’t thinking about it, either. We should start thinking about it. I told you a while ago, the coup would be painless. Just plug the iPod back into your head and keep yourself amused, and it will be over before you know it. Related: http://theanchoressonline.com/2007/05/02/socialism-really-doesnt-work/trackback/ 8 Responses to “Socialism really doesn’t work; cue the coup” |
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Just today I was at a presentation where a very arrogant French man, formerly a high-level bureaucrat for the French health service repeated endlessly how their nationalized care is “much better” than ours.
After suppresing the urge to disrupt the presentation with the world “canicule”, I left before the Q&A period.
(Canicule is shorthand for the 15,000 old and infirm people who died during a heat wave 3 years ago article in French here). BTW, 5 dozen died last year.)
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Quote of the Day…
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public……
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Honored Anchoress,
I found you through Christi at CommonSenseAmerica. I must say that I find your blog most inpressive and stimulating- Here is a thought I have had on both my blog and as a commont on CommonSense- I think it applies here too!
“The left feels kinship with moribund totalitarians because they share that same doomed feeling of futility and humiliation. The Modern Left knows that with the fall of the Soviet Union, the Capitalization of China, dtirrings of successful modernization in India, Mexico and much of the old Soviet block and the defection of the best minds (Hitchens, Podhertz, Kristol, et al) they are no longer the “Modern Left”, they are merely “What’s Left”. It has never been more apparent that their ideas are mawkish, cheap and unworkable. “
[Link: breathofthebeast.blogspot.com...]
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:00 am
Oh, dear. Madame A. Not “Alexander Fraser Tytler” again. Snopes is your friend:
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“The quote from “Alexander Tyler” is very likely fictitious. His name was actually “Lord Woodhouselee, Alexander Fraser Tytler,” and he was a Scottish historian/professor who wrote several books in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
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However, there is no record of The Fall of the Athenian Republic or The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic in the Library of Congress, which has several other titles by Tytler. This quote has also been cited as being from Tytler’s Universal History or from his Elements of General History, Ancient and Modern, books that do exist. These books seem the most likely source of the quote, as they contain extensive discussions of the political systems in historic civilizations, including Athens. Universal History was published after, and based upon, Elements of General History, which was a collection of Professor Tytler’s lecture notes.
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Tytler’s book, Universal history, from the creation of the world to the beginning of the eighteenth century, is available for viewing and searching on-line. The complete text was searched for each of the following phrases:
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Athenian Republic
democracy
generous gifts
public treasury
loose fiscal
fiscal
bondage
200 years
two hundred years
spiritual faith
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In no case was text identified that was remotely similar in words or intent to the alleged Tytler quote.”
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Mind you, it’s not as though this site is alone in retailing bogus quotations—indeed, I’ve seen the Tytler lines disfiguring the landscape in both Left and Right Blogistan, and they’re nowhere near as irritating as the dreadful Lincoln (”corporations enthroned”) and Caesar (”drums of war”) fabrications.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:33 am
The amazing mystery of the Left is that American leftists still continue to promote and cling to things that don’t WORK. Socialized medicine is DYING OUT in Canada, Great Britain and even Sweden. Yet in this country, it’s still being lauded as the next good thing.
The tax cuts stimulated and improved our economy, despite 9/11. The Leftwing adamantly refuses to acknowledge that.
Their blindness to reality is absolutely staggering!
We must work to support alternatives to the Left’s agenda AND we must pray for them that their vision may be cleared.
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:17 am
Unemployment-being unemployed right now, i can empathize. It sucks to not be able to get a job, and does some terrible things to yur self esteem. As for the tax rate…well, I pay about 30% of my income in general taxes (everything included here), 10% off my salary for health insurance, and about 5% on my remaining student loans (which french students don’t have, given part of what those taxes pay for is free ed). So I pay 45% of my income right now. In the cost analysis alone, don’t think it’s that much more than I already pay.
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:19 pm
While I was assigned as a UN Military Observer (UNMO) in Western Sahara, a major from Africa (educated in the USSR) and I were in disagreement which political system was best. I decided to ask our Chinese UNMO what he thought. After looking around for spies, he looked us both in the eye and said, “Socialism sucks!” He was a Political Officer and a member of the Communist Party.
Upper56
May 11th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
[...] to make a few toupees spin, I know, but we’ve been talking, for the last few days, about socialism and socialized programs, and why they don’t work, or how they encourage mediocrity. As the [...]