A Most Perfect Quote
June 02, 2011
– Comments (15)
"An enervated, spiritless people is far less likely to rise up against parasites who live off their labor, even when that regime is exploiting and robbing them blind, if they have been conditioned to believe that they cannot live any other way." - Thomas E. Woods, Rollback
Woods was dissecting Otto Von Bismarck's reasoning for instituting welfarism in Germany in the 1870s - the prototype for all welfare systems in use today. Just like then, today's welfarism has nothing to do with helping people. In fact, humanity has never discovered a less efficient way to help people! You could leave people for dead on the side of the road and it would be a better favor than letting social-worker-parasites into your life. This is why poverty rates stopped falling the moment that welfare schemes were introduced. The pattern is the same all over the world. More welfare leads to more poverty, not less.
And so as America teeters, it's worth noting that what will be offered to Americans from the major voices in both political parties is the same it has been since Bismarck's day: more welfarism. This will be cheered by economically ignorant Regressives. It will be hissed at by staunchy conservatives, but they'll acquiesce because they can't think of any other solution. The reality will be more government control of our lives. After all, that's what they really want when they give you a handout: control.
But there is another way. America is at an all time high in handouts, militarism, welfarism, police statism, and general bloated government parasitism. It's at an all time low in liberty. Why not flip the script?
David in Qatar
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