Posted on 12/17/2003 5:07:31 PM PST by highlander_UW
Start by shutting down their clubs as a crime against fashion. :)
. . . or at least separate them.
Our system has been falling apart ever since women started to assert influence in the late 19th century. The trend was made irrevocable (positive feedback) when women were given the vote.
Man, asbestos will probably be in vogue again after that! :)
Seriously though, you're close, I don't think it's women per say, but allowing the segment of the population (regardless of sex or race) that recieves benefits to vote that hamstrings the republic. The 17th amendment didn't help any either when it switched appointment of senators to putting them up for popular vote...
This paragraph bears repeating, and enlarging upon.
With the end of welfare, as we knew it, the ones with their hands in the public trough are increasingly politicians and once-revered captains of industry. Yes, I know its sacrilege to even suggest it, but the Republicans are just as good at lobbying the federal government for money to build a much-needed bridge, or a new federal office building, or some other piece of pork, as the Democrats. And now that they're in control of both Congress and the White House, we are seeing the federal budget growing at a faster pace than it did even during Clinton's term in office.
Much has been said about the immorality prevalent in Rome in its decline. Some comments on this thread try to relate it to homosexuality, immigration, and other pet issues which, taken as a whole, are but pimples on the hide of an elephant.
What is more immoral than taking the product of another's labor, by force, and then giving it to another? That is the nature of taxation, which hastened Rome's fall as the author of this excellent piece indicates. And even though we aren't quite to the point of spending billions in federal tax dollars on the Olympic games and other spectator sports to assuage the masses, it's getting close. If you count tax-funded stadiums for well-heeled NFL owners and their millionaire players, perhaps we're already there.
Until politicians begin to refuse public handouts ("If we don't take the money, maybe others will follow our lead"), showing their constituents that they are moral human beings as well as "fiscal conservatives," refusing to give subsidies to Wal-Mart and their competition, there is little chance that the welfare state that began 70 years ago will shrink or go away. Rather, it will just get bigger.
I agree entirely with you. Although the democrats are much more comfortable with wealth redistribution through massive taxation programs recent republican actions are equally abusive of the public.
There should be no sacred cows here (or donkeys or elephants). I am convinced that the result of the cultural war that has been taking place in the U.S. has moved us very far from the values of hard work and personal responsibility. I don't believe we've hit it yet, but there is, someplace, a tipping point where our society will chose to take the lazy way out and trust the politicians know what they're doing, but just how is that a reasonable assumption? Politicians are in the job of getting reelected, and to do so they use our money to buy us! I'm sure there are some good intentioned politicians, but we have to face the fact that if they are presented with options that will be correct buy perhaps unpopular (or less popular) that will jeopardize their reelection they are rarely going to chose to do the right thing...and when they do, they may not get reelected and often replaced by a someone less willing to do the right thing. Our current system naturally selects for politicians concerned with flash over substance.
Point taken. Neither I, nor I believe, the author would dare claim our society is troubled by a single source of problem. I do agree with the author, however, that unrestrained taxation and social welfare-support will inevitably lead to a severe degradation, if not fall of our nation. No nation or empire lasts forever, I don't hold any illusions on that account. But we don't have to accept that decline with open arms either.
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Did they have earthquakes too?
We are all excited out here tonight.....
Yes...at least culturally and demographically.
Have you heard what the NRST (the so-called 'fair tax') people have in store for us? Checks from the government teat, not just to those on welfare, but to EVERY single person, kids as well as adults, each and every month.
Was there a quake?
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