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.
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.
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?