Think carefully before demanding that the government take up your cause

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"The average American of today is intellectually so far removed from his forebears
that instead of regarding government with apprehension,
he is more likely to regard it as a virtual parent,

concerned only with protecting him and helping him."

- George Reisman

Human nature being what it is, no government in history has ever been able to live up to the expectations that the current generation of Americans has for our government, and no government is ever likely to.

The government cannot take up your cause without oppressing those who do not embrace that cause.  If you're okay with that, then you are the reason our forebears regarded government with apprehension.  Modern government is full of people like you -- fine with the idea of oppression, as long as the oppressors are your fellow ideological tribespeople.

Farewell, Dr. Thomas Sowell

"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.  -- Thomas Sowell"

Dr. Thomas Sowell, who announced this week that he is retiring, has been a tremendous asset to the national conversation on race and equality.  He will be dearly missed, but I wish him a happy, healthy retirement.

Authoritarian government is the most natural form of government

Human nature being what it is, government always tends toward authoritarianism (or worse), regardless of the nobility or ignobility of a government's founders.  If the citizens were always in perfect harmony with the rulers, authoritarianism wouldn't be necessary.  In the real world, though, government must eventually take measures to create harmony by force.

Many on the right, Christian conservatives included, are justifiably alarmed at the brazen power grabs of the left.  They often think: "If only we can get our folks into power, all will be rainbows and unicorns again."

But is that realistic? George W. Bush, while deeply flawed, had his conservative moments during his presidency, and it was at those times that he faced the full onslaught of a culture that has never been more out of harmony with conservative and constitutional principles.

Remember my earlier statement: in the absence of natural harmony, governments can create harmony only by force.  This is why authoritarian government isn't just the plaything of the left.

The late Francis Schaeffer, a Christian apologist and deep-thinker, saw peril in Christians' tendency to remain silent when government authoritarianism was directed at others.  Writing in 1983, he warned:

Will we resist authoritarian government in all its forms regardless of the label it carries and regardless of its origin?  The danger in regard to the rise of authoritarian government is that Christians will be still as long as their own religious activities, evangelism, and life-styles are not disturbed.

[...] Here is a sentence to memorize:  To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.

—How Should We Then Live? (1976). Italics in the original.

More than thirty years later, Christians are now well aware of what it's like to be the target of the government's authoritarian impulses.  Schaeffer might argue that our silence in the past made our current difficulties more likely.

Be careful what you wish for (Or: This won't end well)

(Click image to view larger version)

This excellent point is usually attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but the curators of all things Jefferson at Monticello insist that there is no evidence he is the source.  They also note that other claimed sources, such as Barry Goldwater and Gerald Ford, are also spurious, although they are known to have employed the quote in their speeches.

As far as documentary evidence goes, the earliest written examples of the quote date back to the early 1950s; the original sage seems to have vanished into the mists of history.

Regardless of the quote's parentage, the point remains valid and deeply profound.  In my opinion, we are likely to see its validation in many unpleasant ways in the coming years and decades.

Quick Quote: Noah Webster on getting the government we deserve

"When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, "just men who will rule in the fear of God." The preservation of government depends on the faithful discharge of this Duty; if the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded. If government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine Commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the Laws."

— Noah Webster, History of the United States (1832)

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Comment: I see this as the continuation of a theme found in George Washington's farewell address.  The reason we have a government that has strayed so far from the Constitution is that the voters have not demanded constitutional fidelity. 

People tend to vote their values whether they realize it or not.  The kind of leaders we tolerate says as much about our values as it does those of the leaders themselves.

I will expand on this further in a future post.

How to know if we really believe in the right to free speech

Mark Steyn, in a recent speech given in Australia:

Anyone can be in favour of free speech for Barney the Dinosaur and the Wiggles, but if you’re not in favour of free speech you find offensive and repellent and loathsome, you’re not in favour of free speech at all. And you’re on the side of creeping totalitarianism.

Ironically, a generation ago it was the left that claimed the need to remind conservatives of this truth.

Quick Quote: Barack Obama v. Thomas Edison

“When Thomas Edison repeatedly came up short in his quest to create a working light bulb, he contended he hadn't failed but rather found 10,000 ways that didn't work. In his quest to fix the economy, Obama has found one way that doesn't work but seems determined to try it 10,000 times.”

— Patriot Post Digest, August 26

Quick Quote: Thomas Jefferson on the immorality of passing the public debt from one generation to the next

"I say, the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence."

— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison (September 6, 1789)

Via The Federalist Papers (on Facebook)

Sen. Barack Obama condemns the Obama administration’s “leadership failure” in debt limit crisis

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies... 
 
Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.
 
-- Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), March 20, 2006

Quick Quote - Alexander Hamilton on the balance between state and federal power

Hamilton certainly did not envision a future where the states  willingly surrendered any leverage they had over the federal government.

"This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them."

–Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788

The causes are various, but one of the most egregious was the states’ ratification of the 17th Amendment, making the Senate a matter of popular vote rather than state appointment.

Whatever the reasons, the states now are for the most part submissive to the will of the federal government, and We The People are overwhelmingly the losers.

(Via Patriot Post)

John Adams: Nip it in the bud!

John Adams, like Barney Fife, saw but one rational response to approaching dangers: nip it in the bud.  Writing to the residents of Massachusetts in 1775, he (Adams, not Fife) had this to say about Britain’s “long train of abuses and usurpations”:

Obsta principiis, nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards.

Obsta principiis – Resist the beginnings.

Unfortunately, arbitrary power has grown far beyond the shoots.  For too long, the American people have given way, to the point where virtually all resistance ceased for many decades.

Groups like the TEA party movement represent an attempt to take a metaphorical machete to the tangled jungle of unconstitutional government.  It may be too late, but let history record that someone recognized the peril and at least tried to reverse it.

Quick Quote: James Madison on the evil of public debt

I regret, as much as any member, the unavoidable weight and duration of the burdens to be imposed; having never been a proselyte to the doctrine, that public debts are public benefits. I consider them, on the contrary, as evils which ought to be removed as fast as honor and justice will permit, and shall heartily join in the means necessary for that purpose.

– James Madison, Debates in the House of Representatives on the First Report on Public Credit, February 11, 1790; “Liberty and Order: The First American Party Struggle," edited and with a Preface by Lance Banning (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004), Part II: The Leadership Divides

(via The Federalist Papers (Facebook))

Fake MLK quote is born in the wake of Osama bin Laden's demise

In the day and a half since terror boss Osama bin Laden was dispatched with extreme prejudice by American assets, I have seen the following quote appear countless times in my Facebook newsfeed:

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

The quote is attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As it turns out, it's not all MLK.  Everything but the first sentence comes from King's 1963 book, Strength to Love.

The first sentence actually started out as a comment presented with the remaining quote in someone's Facebook status update.  For some reason, people who copied and pasted this person's status moved the opening quotation mark to include the comment.  Here's the original (click image to view larger version):

The extra sentence is a great sentiment, and one with which I am sure MLK would agree.  ("Fake but accurate", as newsman Dan Rather said in another context.)

Due to the tireless efforts of well-meaning people, future generations will swear up and down that MLK actually said it.

(Via: St Eutychus)

There’s simply no way to spin the budget deal as a victory for fiscal sanity

Politics is the art of the possible. -- Otto von Bismarck

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. -- John Kenneth Galbraith

If $38 billion out of a $1.5 trillion budget shortfall is all that was possible, we’re done for.

Quick Quote: Benjamin Franklin on the War on Poverty

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

-- Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766

Read the rest here.  Franklin appears to be of the opinion that we shouldn’t allow the social “safety net” to become a hammock.

Quick Quote: James Madison on the federal leviathan

“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?”

— James Madison, The Federalist #62

Fences: A parable.

"Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up."
-- Robert Frost

Who in the world is David H. Comins?

Does David H. Comins actually exist?

The “Thought For The Day” Listserv had this quote today:

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.
-- David H. Comins

I loved the quote, and wanted to pass it along to my friends, but I was curious about the author, because I had never heard of him.

I’m usually pretty good at digging information out of Google, but so far I’ve come up empty.  Searching on his name, I found countless sites that reproduce this quote, but have no information about who Comins is.

So… Is Comins a one-hit wonder, famous precisely for saying the above quote, but otherwise obscure?  That’s not very easy to pull off, it seems to me.

I did find a Facebook page for a David Comins, but I’d have to get on his Friends list to see any detailed information on him.  There’s a David Comins on LinkedIn, but how would an Information Manager at TimeWarner become famous for a quote on Benjamin Franklin?

C’mon, somebody do my homework for me and point me to a site that tells me who Comins is.

There is a lesson in all of this.  How often to we uncritically pass on things we find on the Internet or receive in our email?  Do any of the people who posted the Comins quote on their websites know anything about Comins, assuming he exists?  I’m willing to bet they don’t.

You’re welcome to prove me wrong.


11 July 2011 UPDATE: The hunt for David H. Comins still rages on, given the number of visits to this post through search engines.  I decided to have another look to see if anything else had turned up on him.  I think we've got him!  It seems that the possibility that I dismissed above as the least likely has ended up being the reality about our mystery man.

All of those sites referring to him as an author may want to reconsider that description, given that pretty much the only thing he ever got published was... that quote.  It was a reader submission for a magazine article.  In real life, it looks like he was a real estate broker in Manchester, Connecticut for quite a while, but he's well past retirement now.  I wouldn't be surprised if he’s spending his golden years marveling about how famous—yet obscure—he is.


18 December 2015 UPDATE: The links in the previous update no longer work, so I thought I'd update my search.  A recent book called The Official Rules has this entry for "Comins's Law":

There's no way to know where the authors got their information, but the citation supports my 2011 findings: that Comins lived in Manchester, Connecticut, and that the quotation originally appeared in a magazine article (HW = Harper's Weekly).  He may still be there, if Pipl's data is accurate.

Conclusion, reiterated: David H. Comins is famous for this quotation, and nothing else.  If it weren't for his submission to Harper's, he wouldn't exist at all, as far as the internet is concerned.

Quick Quote: Milton Friedman on why business is none of the government’s business

“The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-union-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline.”

-- Milton Friedman

Quick Quote: Frédéric Bastiat on wealth redistribution

There’s an abundance of data supporting this from the experience of Communist societies, but certain western academics and politicians remain convinced that the problem resides in the execution of the philosophy, not in the philosophy itself.

If it were to be asserted on principle, admitted in practice, sanctioned by law, that every man has a right to the property of another, the gift would have no merit—charity and gratitude would be no longer virtues. Besides, such a doctrine would suddenly and universally arrest labor and production, as severe cold congeals water and suspends animation; for who would work if there was no longer to be any connection between labor and the satisfying of our wants?

-- Frédéric Bastiat, Essays on Political Economy

Feel free to draw your own applications to the financially destructive, liberty-smothering health care boondoggle that just passed.