Posted on 02/12/2010 11:15:04 AM PST by Mozilla
Government is taking us a long way down the Road to Serfdom. That doesn't just mean that more of us must work for the government. It means that we are changing from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit.
F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote "The Road to Serfdom" in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom. The book was a hit. Reader's Digest produced a condensed version that sold 5 million copies.
At the beginning of "The Road to Serfdom," Hayek acknowledges that mere material wealth is not all that's at stake when the government controls our lives: "The most important change … is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people."
According to the Tax Foundation, 60 percent of the population now gets more in government benefits than it pays in taxes. What does it say about a society in which more than half the people live at the expense of the rest? Worse, the dependent class is growing. The 60 percent will soon be 70 percent.
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin seems to understand the threat: He's worries that "more people have a stake in the welfare state than in free enterprise. This is a road that Hayek perfectly described as 'the road to serfdom.'"
Arthur Brooks, who heads the American Enterprise Institute, says statism is becoming the "central organizing power in our economy," and that the battle between free enterprise and statism will shape our futures.
He asks the right question: Do we want a culture of takers or makers? Ryan and Brooks say most people want "the American idea": freedom and self-responsibility. I fear they want a Mommy State to take care of them.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
F.A. Hayek is our brother Austrian: Government is taking us a long way down the Road to Serfdom. That doesn't just mean that more of us must work for the government. It means that we are changing from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit. F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote "The Road to Serfdom" in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom. .. He asks the right question: Do we want a culture of takers or makers? Ryan and Brooks say most people want "the American idea": freedom and self-responsibility. I fear they want a Mommy State to take care of them.
I saw an example of this first-hand when my wife and I visited Russia a few years ago. There was a loose cobblestone on the sidewalk and our translator stumbled on it and nearly fell off of her characteristic stiletto heels.
Following behind her as she muttered something under her breath that I'm probably fortunate I didn't understand, I gently punted the rock onto the dirt next to the sidewalk, barely breaking my stride and hardly even thinking about it as we shopped for gifts at the little boutique to which she brought us.
On the way back to the car, the moment we got to the place where the rock had been, she turned around, gestured to me (Russians don't point), and exclaimed "you did that, didn't you??"
"Uh... what?" I replied, surprised at her reaction.
"You moved that rock off of the sidewalk, didn't you??"
"Uh... yeah?" I said, still bewildered.
"That's such an American thing to do!"
And she, my wife, and I spent the next little while talking about the tragedy represented by generations of Russians having been brought up to curse the darkness instead of lighting a candle.
the full text of the 1945 Readers Digest condensed version of The Road to Serfdom is at post # 9 here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2448187/posts?page=9#9
bttt
What would be a reasonable % of people receiving vs taking? Does the current 60/40 split count children who don’t pay taxes? The other issue is that part of that 60% are people who are getting paid back some of the money confiscated from them via the SS ponzi scam
If your cable/satellite service doesn't do Fox, then you can watch the program in six segments on youtube.
All of these shows are worth watching and making copies for any of your friends who are deprived of FBC and high-speed internet.
Nerfdom sounds safer.
Great story. Thanks for sharing.
btt
According to Glenn Beck the other night, Obama recently acquiesced to China’s demand that we shut up and put up with China’s stealing our tech./defense secrets. We’re slaves to China because she owns so much of this country and our debt.
So a new Gallup poll just came out, reporting that socialism was viewed positively by more than one-third of Americans. That's a lot of people, if you could call them that.
But I'm not surprised.
Think about it for a second. Since when has socialism ever been accurately portrayed in American pop culture or academia? I've never seen it covered in "Facts of Life," and I've watched every episode. And Rage Against the Machine, one of the most successful leftwing buckets of noise on the planet, never really explained how they spent their millions. Although I'm guessing it's not just on Rogaine and trucker hats.
Fact is, because socialism is a lie, people have to keep pushing the lie. When someone says, "Hey, my brother is a socialist," they never follow it with, "you know, that ideology based on envy that's responsible for the deaths of millions." No instead it's, "He sells Che shirts out of hemp, when he isn't recycling sex toys for the homeless. God he's so caring."
Fact is, socialism is the easiest thing you can romanticize, because it's a big fat exaggeration of "sharing." As kids, we were always told to share, because sharing is good. If you had twenty Playboys under your bed, surely you could hand one off to Billy, who has none. Socialism has always piggybacked on this notion: that it's just not right for you to have so much, when others have so little. Never mind that you've earned what you've got, while the others sit around watching Judge Judy in their underpants (sorry Bill). Socialism is government forcing you to share your stuff with jerks.
So the only way to teach American adults that socialism is evil, is to get them when they're young. The next time your son mows the lawn, instead of paying him directly - tell him you're going to "spread it around," to quote our President. Yep, even though you did all the work, Tommy, there are kids down the block who deserve that money just as much.
Now, if your kid finds this idea appealing, you have full permission to send him to Venezuela. He can mow for Hugo!
And if you disagree with me, you probably masturbate to Noam Chomsky.
Dragging down initiative in the name of “equality” simply spreads misery around and lowers the quality of life for us all. Yet it seems that the only idea anyone in government can come up with for any problem is to do more of that. What are they trying to do to us?
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