Politicians never accuse you of ‘greed’ for wanting other people’s money, only for wanting to keep your own money
– Joseph Sobran
|
|||||
|
We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people. Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house] Authors
Arts, Tech & CultureCivil LibertiesCommentary
EconomicsSamizdatistas |
Samizdata quote of the dayOctober 19th, 2013 |
 23 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
Who Are We?The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling. We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe. CategoriesArchivesFeed This PageLink Icons   |
|||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||
Theft is easy when one doesn’t believe in the concept of ownership.
They are quite content to waste your money on culling Badgers for no logical reason.
Covetousness (wanting other people’s stuff) is explicitly condemned in the Ten Commandments, while jealousy (wanting to keep your own) is not only not condemned, but explicitly endorsed – God admitting to jealousy himself. Yet we are knee deep in priests and bishops demanding “social justice” aka redistribution of wealth by the state. How is this ?
The thieves decide what larceny is Parliament.
Remember never to stand between the trough and a politician.
@Lee Moore – The idea of “social justice” and of the redistribution of wealth, not through voluntary charity but through the force and violence of government intervention, has trickled down to and been accepted by so many within my extended Catholic family that I’ve come to the conclusion they’ve read a different version of the Bible than me. I’m not even a practicing Catholic and haven’t been in a long while but if memory serves this stance is a deviation from the teachings and downright heretical. You seem more up to speed than I. Am I wrong about this?
@Regional – It’s not just politicians stampeding over me to get to the trough, but a majority of my fellow citizens. From top to bottom, rich and poor, businessmen and politicians, all seem to hell bent to, as Bastiat explained, live at the expense of everyone else. To echo Lee Moore, how did this happen?
Wealth brings with it its own checks and balances. The basis of political economy is noninterference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws. Give no bounties, make equal laws, secure life and property, and you need not give alms. Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands. In a free and just commonwealth, property rushes from the idle and imbecile to the industrious, brave and persevering.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life, 1860
Never?
I’ve seen politicians attack subsidy-hunters and alleged profiteers off the public purse, such as defense contractors; also, on occasion, government employees regarded as overpaid.
Also, recently, pharmaceutical companies for charging high prices. That to me is “wanting other people’s money”.
Sometimes the allegation of greed is subsumed in an allegation of stealing; but it is still part of the indictment.
Whether these accusations are just or not is another question.
It is a good, true, post.
It must also be remembered that the vast majority of government spending (in all Western countries – including the United States) is on the Welfare State – defended on grounds of “compassion” and “social justice”.
The proportion of the economy taken by defence spending has been in decline for 50 years or more.
Defence spending is contrived to ‘creating’ jobs, on Coast the Scots Commo was getting all wet between the knees about unionism in ship building on the Clyde which now is reduced to building ships for the Royal Navy.
It is a good quote. By the way, is this the same J Sobran, who, however, had a decidedly unsavoury set of views that got him booted out of National Review by the late Bill Buckley some time ago.
“They are quite content to waste your money on culling Badgers for no logical reason.”
If the State would allow it, farmers would happily shoot plenty of badgers for nothing.
No idea JP, but being unsavoury has never precluded a person from getting quoted here if the quote is interesting 😉
Pardone:
I think you will find that farmers are having to fund the badger cull themselves.
How can I describe the charm of a site in which a fairly serious and contentious discussion of a major statist initiative turns to the subject of culling badgers?
Oh yes, samizdata!
Love it.
Is there anything non-serious or non-contentious about badgers and culling thereof? I think not.
Only if you are a badger 😛
I always wonder if a State-organised, funded or incited extermination campaign might not be a dry run for the more enthusiastic socialists in the State apparatus.
Mr Ed.
Judging by the comments of Labour party candidates (such as the person in Cheltenham – who thinks that living standards went up in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, in fact tens of millions of people starved to death, and holds the Berlin Wall to have been a good idea) and of “Ed” Miliband himself (invoking his father, the Marxist Ralph Miliband, in his first speeches as leader of the Labour party) and of the “Guardian” newspaper (the Bible of the establishment left) defended the Marxism of Ralph Miliband (in a front page story) as “justice”.
The left have not changed – given the opportunity they would murder tens of millions once again.
And it is not just the Marxist left.
Remember the followers of the Black Flag cooperate with the Marxists – in everything from the world (and it is world) “Occupy” movement to the Chicago Teacher union.
The “libertarian” left (the so called “anarchists”) are, in practical terms, no different to the Marxists.
As for badgers and T.B.
I have never understood the attitude of “never vaccinate cattle – just kill them” attitude in Britain – and it is not just TB.
Paul Marks: Chippenham, not Cheltenham, but likewise a seat he stands little chance of winning.
My apologies Andrew.
However, Ed Miliband will still be Parliament.
If only my own “tribe” had better leadership…..