The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills. [Thomas Jefferson]
God himself will not save men from their wills. Thomas Jefferson understood this and suggested that the State also, is fundamentally unable to save men from their desires.
A democracy allows the majority to vote in a political class committed to keeping the lambs well feed. A democracy also has the capacity to vote the same wolves out if they do not behave themselves. Sort of. Apathy, ignorance and ideological disposition may mean that the majority simply follows the best propaganda. Do we recognise propaganda when we see it?
The age of reason heralded in an age of human rationalism that spread some ideas that at first glance seem, well, liberating. Some of those ideas though were easily turned to extremes such as communism and fascism. Equally, we've seen socialism and "third way" politics grow government in an efforts to feed as many lambs as possible. It often leads us with a range of choices across a very small band.
After the extremes of the last century, we tag almost anything new as "extremist" and defining anything as "radical" instantly frames the idea as risky. Thus, en masse, the herd settles on varying degrees of repeating the same mistakes in slightly different ways, to achieve much the same results. Why do we expect anything to be different then?
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it. [P.J. O'Rourke]. Not much choice there really. Perhaps that's much the same right now with New Zealand. It's too early to tell, other than the rule of 'repetition in degrees' has already been established. We can actually predict the outcome.
This is one of those posts where I've said absolutely nothing, and yet it has to be said before I could possibly hope to make a point. The information can only be delivered in bite sized chunks. Who has time to read a book, when you are so busy reading 20 blogs?
So here's two more pieces of the puzzle: Oswald makes my point with some words from the master we all grok: Heinlein and a Perfect Democracy
and Roger Gardner reflects on the rise of the State of Obama
There is also a third piece of the puzzle, but it takes me so far off track from this post, I'll save it for later. Let's see where this takes us.
God himself will not save men from their wills. Thomas Jefferson understood this and suggested that the State also, is fundamentally unable to save men from their desires.
A democracy allows the majority to vote in a political class committed to keeping the lambs well feed. A democracy also has the capacity to vote the same wolves out if they do not behave themselves. Sort of. Apathy, ignorance and ideological disposition may mean that the majority simply follows the best propaganda. Do we recognise propaganda when we see it?
The age of reason heralded in an age of human rationalism that spread some ideas that at first glance seem, well, liberating. Some of those ideas though were easily turned to extremes such as communism and fascism. Equally, we've seen socialism and "third way" politics grow government in an efforts to feed as many lambs as possible. It often leads us with a range of choices across a very small band.
After the extremes of the last century, we tag almost anything new as "extremist" and defining anything as "radical" instantly frames the idea as risky. Thus, en masse, the herd settles on varying degrees of repeating the same mistakes in slightly different ways, to achieve much the same results. Why do we expect anything to be different then?
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it. [P.J. O'Rourke]. Not much choice there really. Perhaps that's much the same right now with New Zealand. It's too early to tell, other than the rule of 'repetition in degrees' has already been established. We can actually predict the outcome.
This is one of those posts where I've said absolutely nothing, and yet it has to be said before I could possibly hope to make a point. The information can only be delivered in bite sized chunks. Who has time to read a book, when you are so busy reading 20 blogs?
So here's two more pieces of the puzzle: Oswald makes my point with some words from the master we all grok: Heinlein and a Perfect Democracy
and Roger Gardner reflects on the rise of the State of Obama
There is also a third piece of the puzzle, but it takes me so far off track from this post, I'll save it for later. Let's see where this takes us.
Is NZ a democracy or an oligarchy? A lot of people mistakenly think the USA is a democracy. She may be moving towards that, but America is supposed to be a Republic. Many people, including tea party atendees, are awakening to the fact there is a shadow elite now running the American government and BHO is their latest puppet. Here is some info on what America's republic is and why she must be preserved. http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment
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