Posted on 06/02/2004 11:31:34 AM PDT by CFW
What is the origin of this phrase?
All that is not permitted is forbidden
It is the foundation for our proposed local zoning code.
Can anyone give me some history, it seems very familiar.
I've seen it credited to Mussolini.
Our local zoning uses that logic when they wish to condemn a property. They go through and find every not permitted item and list ever violation. Ie did not pull a permit for a ceiling fan, light, doorway, plumbing fixture, toilet out of date etc.
Cities also use permiting as reasons to jack up property tax valuations.
I am in the camp which somehow remembers this from Orwell.
I always thought it was H L Menken.
"The Reformed principle is that the acceptable way of worshipping God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his revealed will that he may not be worshipped in any other way than that prescribed in the Holy Scripture, that what is not commanded is forbidden. This is in contrast with the view that what is not forbidden is permitted." Collected Writings, I.167-68.
The alternative was held by Arminius.
Could be from this outdated and ignored relic from the pre-New Deal era--
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
http://users.aol.com/kenjenks/personal/quotes.htm
ASCAN (Astronaut Candidate) 10 COMMANDMENTS
All which is not mandatory is hereby declared forbidden.
George Orwell
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Aha! The 10th Amendment from the Bill of Rights. I thought we'd done away with that one. It's certain that we've not followed to limit the ever-expanding Federal Government since, at least, the New Deal, as you say.
My old man, a lawyer, said that it was the very tenuous logic of enforcing the 14th, 15th, and 16th Amendments (freeing the Slaves and then guaranteeing their Civil Rights) that utterly destroyed the last vestiges of States Rights.
You missed one:
The Italian Model: All is permitted, especially that which is forbidden.
Calvin is the context in which I've heard it used as well. The Puritans used it to develop their doctrine of the regulative principle of worship.
George Orwell
Exactly. It's got nothing to do with "permission." Things are either forbidden or mandatory.
We know we are still a free society here cause you can make a right on red. Or not. It is still up to your own option. No matter what the people behind you think, it is not mandatory to turn right on red. It's just annoying not to.
SD
The oldest reference I know of is from The Once and Future king. Young King Arthur is transformed into an ant. The ant colony has a motto posted that says "ALL THAT IS NOT MANDATORY IS FORBIDDEN".
It means that anything that is not specifically granted a permit through the application process is forbidden so you'll have neat prohibited things like replacing your hot water heater without a permit (which is about the same as the cost of the heater here in CC County, CA and which I, of course, had recently replaced without said permit)...
Trying to google this, I find a dozen alternate phrases. Obviously not all of them can be correct quotes.
Posts number 6 and 24 are interesting.
I don't know if this was its first use, but in "The Once and Future King" by E.B. White (a book about King Arthur), Merlin transforms young Arthur into an ant. On entering the ant colony, Arthur reads a sign posted for all ants to read stating "Everything not forbidden is compulsory."
I think it's from some sort of agreement that anyone who would date one Hillary Rodham had to sign before she would go out with her.
There is a Chassidic version:
vos men tor nit, tor men nit, un vos men meg darf men nit.
"What is forbidden, is forbidden, and what is allowed is not necessary."
I've been trying to get this straight from memory. Google is no help. Everyone has a different version. Your version is the way I remember it, but it makes no sense. There is no way to forbid everything that needs to be forbidden. Perhaps that's the joke.
I don't know if she originated it.
The Barvarian Model: All is forbidden, except during Fashing Season.
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