Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Today, I’m linking to a page on Lew Rockwell…
Hey. Come back.
On Lew Rockwell, there is the story of one Horatio Bunce, who may or may not have actually existed, quotes within said story having may or may not occurred. I’m inclined toward the negative — they tend to drone on for a bit, without any mention of who exactly is so meticulously scribbling ’em down.
Be that as it may, the principles involved make good sense, and the principles are what the story is really about. Click on the link and read. Top to bottom. I’ll wait. Believe me, I’ve got nothing better to do with my time. I’ll just wait for you to come back. La dee da dee da…oh but do make sure, if you’re the casually skimming type, that you give an especially hard read to the passage below:
The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.
I’d like to add just one other thing.
I am, by the grace of God, presently employed in an industry and in an occupation which is compensated to the extent of excess, and I am debt free. In my economic circumstances, any ol’ numb-nuts can post such a thing without a second thought.
It was passed on to me, by one of my blogger pals who has been out of work for quite some time and whose gas tank and cupboards are becoming quite empty. He is the very picture of the human wreckage being tempted toward voting for Obama the day after tomorrow. He will not be doing that — in fact, he is manning the console, forwarding on fascinating true-patriot libertarian material such as this.
If he can remember principles such as these, I say, then so can we all.
And in a position like that, this takes heap big huge ginormous balls. The kind that an ordinary gentleman cannot easily ambulate, without the benefit of a wheelbarrow, and not of the casual-gardening kind.
Join me in raising a glass to my as-yet-anonymous blogger friend and those like him. And do give him a think or three on Tuesday as you step into the voting booth. Frankly, if he isn’t quite yet ready to give up on capitalism, then I really don’t see where anyone else better off has any business contemplating such a thing.
Obama, no, merci beaucoup.
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Did you catch the column by Donald J. Boudreaux in the Christian Science Monitor? It included this quote by Norman Thomas: “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened.”
One bad thing about making a living by robbing your neighbor is that the money’s good until it runs out. America can actually appear to do well by redistributing its wealth until suddenly (in a few years) there’s no more wealth to redistribute. And then, as always, it will be someone else’s fault for not doing more.
- JohnJ | 11/03/2008 @ 09:40If it squicks you to link to Rockwell, and, yeah, I know what you mean, you could link to that story at Advocates for Self-Government instead, as I did here, commenting under my real name. I don’t post much at Hit & Run any more; don’t see the point in it.
I’m happy to drink a toast to your friend. And yes, I’ll be voting for Palin tomorrow.
- Hector Owen | 11/03/2008 @ 23:33