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Another Perspective
Bastiat to the NAACP: ‘Don’t Pull the Temple Down On Your Head’
What the great French economist would have said to the civil rights organization.
Two cheers to Mitt Romney for his performance last week at the NAACP convention in Houston. “Any policy that lifts up and honors the family is going to be good for the country and that must be our goal,” Romney said. “As president I will promote strong families — and I will defend traditional marriage.” That was the big-applause line. More tellingly, however, he also told this potentially hostile audience: “As you may have heard from my opponent, I am also a strong believer in the free enterprise system. I believe it can bring change where so many well-meaning government programs have failed. I’ve never heard anyone look around an impoverished neighborhood and say, ‘You know, there’s too much free enterprise around here. Too many shops, too many jobs, too many people putting money in the bank.’”
Even so, this was — as NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said — “a missed opportunity.” It was a missed opportunity to deliver a crushing blow to the intellectual claptrap that passes for enlightened thinking in the NAACP — and not just there, but in the larger nexus of elitist thinking to be found in our nation’s college campuses, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and, not least, the Obama White House.
Who better to deliver that much-needed blow than Frederic Bastiat, the great free-market French economist who loved liberty and spoke out against “socialism” — which he defined as “legalized plunder”? Bastiat died 162 years ago — on December 24, 1850. But his words are as timely today as they were back then (two years after the publication of Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto”). Long before Hayek, Bastiat recognized government as the greatest single threat to liberty. He wrote:
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism.
Bastiat hated the arrogance of the progressive (i.e. progress as defined and controlled by government), let’s-play-God mindset: “Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations. To them… the relationship between persons and the legislator appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay and the potter.” And again he said of the do-gooders’ belief in exalted government: “Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don’t you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.”
Here then is how the acerbic Frenchman might have addressed the NAACP convention if he had awoken from a prolonged Rip van Winkle-like slumber.
*****
Good morning NAACP! I speak to you across a gulf of many years and yet I can’t help noticing how much today’s world resembles that of the one that I departed more than a century and a half ago. Did you know that Alexis de Tocqueville and I were both deputies in the Constituent Assembly that was formed in Paris following the revolution of 1848? This is how Tocqueville described in the scene on the streets:
On my return (to Paris), I found in the capital a hundred thousand armed workmen formed into regiments, out of work, dying of hunger, but with their minds crammed with vain theories and visionary hopes. I saw society cut into two: those who possessed nothing, united in common greed; those who possessed something, united in a common terror.
Yes, we had demonstrations and protests in Paris and other French cities that were not dissimilar to the ones that happened all over the United States and other countries through the “Occupy” movement. But I see that you, Monsieur Jealous (president of the NAACP), went out of your way to express your sympathy — and indeed your solidarity — with the bands of people who “occupied” public parks and spaces. You said:
We are encouraged by the broad national support and by the great diversity of Americans who have been participating in the Occupy Wall Street campaign. The movement and the peaceful (sic) protesters who are part of the campaign share many of the goals as the NAACP… and (we) share the protesters’ concerns about the growing disparity of access to wealth in America, and the decline of economic opportunity for poor and middle-class Americans. For over 102 years we have supported the policies which create, preserve, and expand living wage jobs, increase economic opportunity, and protect the right of every American to build and retain wealth and equity.
With those words, my friends, I can tell you that you are embarked upon a self-destructive course. Like the “occupiers,” you want to use the collective force of the state in order to take from some and give to others. Almost all of the policies that your organization supports — in calling for bigger and more active government — are profoundly counter-productive. They will not create, preserve, and expand jobs. To the contrary, they will destroy jobs and condemn this great country to the unhappy fate of never-ending economic stagnation and unending political and social turmoil. Like Sampson in the Bible, you will pull the temple down on your own head.
We are all struck by the spectacle of inequality in society. No one wants to see poverty in the midst of plenty. But what causes this inequality? Our attempt to remedy an evil may have the perverse effect of perpetuating the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: what I have called “legal plunder.”
You and I expect the law to protect us against criminal plunder — where others deprive us of what is rightfully ours through the use of force or deception. But there is the other kind of plunder — legal plunder — when the government itself is responsible for violating our property rights in the pursuit of wrong-headed social policies that undermine the ability of people to think and act on their own. In this case, the state has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder.
We must face up to the realities of the human condition.
About the Author
Andrew B. Wilson, a frequent contributor to The American Spectator, writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (48) | Leave a comment
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aware| 7.16.12 @ 6:39AM
Hopefully, so called conservatives will be reading Bastiat. Legal plunder is the basis of the State. Since the State is also a monopoly of force and violence, I don't see it ever ending legal plunder.
But even further in the ancient mists of the past, the State is the creation of Nimrod, the mighty hunter of men, as rival for the allegiance of men in opposition to the God of Abraham.
This war continues to this very day. The goal of a rival political/religious system was thwarted for thousands of years by different languages, which is why the real inner circle of this rival system communicate with symbols instead of language.
The New World Order is really very old indeed. So much for the myth of "good" government.
Brookschwarzenegro | 7.16.12 @ 1:40PM
Jesus had little respect for capitalism- he overturned the money changer's tables in the temple.
He would break up a Bingo game today, and the police would be called to arrest Him
GW| 7.16.12 @ 1:48PM
Did he now? He overturned money changer's tables because of where they were located. He was rightly indignant that people had turned a house of worship into a house of greed.
Elsewhere, however, Jesus mentions a parable about talents--or pieces of money. In it, the master entrusts his servants each with differing amounts of talents. The master praises the servants who invest the money and condemns the servant who did not.
Brookschwarzenegro | 7.16.12 @ 8:48PM
BS,
the Sermon On The Mount is more socialist than Karl Marx.
Brookschwarzenegro | 7.16.12 @ 9:24PM
There is something very socialistic about this:
"When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying:
'Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.' "
DTOM| 7.20.12 @ 7:36AM
BS one,
Using the Bible for anything other than spreading the Word is guaranteed to really aggravate the Guy who wrote it. You are doing just that. Good luck with that. Remember: Hell lasts a lot longer than your attention span.
aware| 7.16.12 @ 5:37PM
You are allowing your partisanship to distort your understanding. Jesus did NOT overturn "capitalist" endeavors, the money changers were cheating the exchange rate and stealing the rake off. With the full complicity of the priests. And others were cheating the price of doves and rams. They were about as "capitalist" as the corrupt stinking banking system we have. Or the putrid crony fascist economic system we have that you call "capitalism". None of this is capitalist or free market in any way.
Nowhere in Scripture do you find anything but support of free market exchange. What do you think boundary markers are if not defining what is mine and what is yours?
You are not the first to try to dragoon Jesus into your cause. Or even the first to claim He was "anti-capitalist". The same ones that opposed Him are opposing liberty and honesty to this day. He called them sons of Satan, and when you peal away all the elaborate facade of secret societies pretending to be "religious" and alturistic that's still what you have.
Brookschwarzenegro | 7.16.12 @ 8:50PM
Ditto:
Bullshite, the Sermon On The Mount is more socialist than Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and Eugene Debs all rolled into one.
darcy| 7.16.12 @ 10:22PM
Your reading of the Sermon on the Mount reflects woeful ignorance. But that's what we expect from Marxist cronies.
Brookschwarzenegro | 7.16.12 @ 11:56PM
You are confusing Adam Smith with Christ--
Jesus espoused pacifistic, non-materialistic doctrines--but there is no way you can sidestep it.
DTOM| 7.20.12 @ 7:38AM
BS one,
YOU are confusing Adam Smith with Jesus. And they were both right, the Latter moreso than the former.
Dolt.
aware| 7.17.12 @ 5:55AM
You are proving that the Word of God without the Holy Spirit is a terrible thing. You are also on very dangerous ground in confusing the work of God with the work of the Accuser. You are on the border of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which is never forgiven. Be careful you don't slip over that border.
"By their fruit you shall know them". Half a billion dead in less than a century. Millions more in servitude, abject poverty, and sheer terror. If ever there was a "religion" rooted in this world and the Prince of this world, it is collectivism in all its insidious variations. True children of Nimrod the hunter of men.
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 6:54AM
Romney said more to this Group of Racist Losers, than did their Hero - Black Jesus - by way of Indonesia's Mosques.
At least he showed up. He coulda told them all to Pound Sand up their @sses, like they do everyday anyway, or just promise to send his Veep Pick in his place, if, and when, he can find somebody as Fckng Stupid as Yobama's.
Let's face it. These people are one step up the ladder from being Farm Animals or Domesticated Pets.
They don't Produce anything besides offspring. They don't get Married in a Church and raise Families. No. When the females go in to Heat, the Males come sniffing around and the next thing you know, you're looking at another Volunteer for a "Free Stuff" from Cracker.
They don't ADD anything to Society, unless you count the Prison Population and the Crime Statistics.
Wherever they plant their Flag, overnight becomes a Filthy, Dangerous, Crime Ridden No Go Wasteland, that you do not wanna be in After Dark.
Like Locusts, they descend on an area, consume all of it's Bounty, until that place can so no longer sustain them, and then move on to the next one.
Hence the phrase - There goes the Neighborhood/There goes the Town/There goes the City/There goes the State. Haiti would be - There goes that half of the Island. Africa is - There goes the Continent.
I say that, if this Singular Group of Humans wants to keep Drinking from the same Well that they P*ss in? Let'em.
"You can lead a Horse to water................but you can't fix Stupid."
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 7:48AM
The Democrats to the NAACP: 'Don't pull your Heads outta your Asses.'
'EVER!'
elsdallas| 7.16.12 @ 4:20PM
You sir are the reason that black people, who tend to be conservative, don't vote Republican. You are a racist. Your post is an example of what Democrats say Republicans think about black people.
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 5:15PM
Why don't you tell me what I got wrong?
There is NOBODY more Racists, than BLACK AMERICA.
Period.
Everything I said is TRUE.
And, if that makes me a Racist?
I wear it as a Badge of Honour.
Brookschwarzenegro | 7.16.12 @ 8:54PM
This is TLP:
"I am not a racist, I just don't like them cotton-picking coons who drive welfare Cadillacs, smoke crack, and drive their hos around in Pimpmobiles.
Let's ship em back to Africa before they piss in my doorway!"
R Martin| 7.16.12 @ 7:48AM
Two cheers to Mr. Wilson as well for bringing Frederic Bastiat to the attention of AS readers. I may have offered a third cheer had Mr. Wilson provided a link to the Bastiat Society website or dwelt a bit on the Society’s mission of educating people that the world is getting better because peaceful and profitable business creates wealth for everyone. The Society strives to give those who create wealth and jobs the tools they need to defend them.
Mitt Romney should spend a few minutes reading Bastiat then go forth and defend his business record and that of Bain with vigor. In 1800 the world poverty rate was 85 percent; today it is around 14 percent. That improvement in world living standards did not evolve because of progressive government but rather because business created stuff that people wanted to improve their lives. Obama’s attack on business must not go unchallenged and must, in fact, be turned back against his administration.
Whoever is advising Mr. Romney on this matter needs to consult these pages. I could easily name five people who regularly comment here who could do a far better job of structuring an effective response to Obama’s attacks.
Anthony| 7.16.12 @ 9:08AM
I quite agree R. Martin. Romney had best start listening to real conservatives rather than the beltway brainiacs that are into McLame redux.
Taking this election to Obozo is as easy as pie. Obozo is a sitting duck, issues waiting to be knocked out of the park. Obozo makes Jimmy Carter look invincable!!
If Romney applied 1/2 of his attack machine that he employed against Santorum and Gingrich, Obozo would be at 30% in the polls.
If Romney and the beltway brainiacs lose this election, it's over for the R party, the Washington establishment, and America!!
Then the people will rise!!
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 11:18AM
Thank you, Anthony.
We'll be in touch with you, if anything opens up.
Yours Truly
Romney 2012
Anthony| 7.16.12 @ 11:42AM
Do I get a huge signing bonus, car, and free health insurance? And what office will I occupy in the West Wing?
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 2:34PM
No.
But you can have all of the Osmand Records you want.
Anthony| 7.16.12 @ 8:57AM
I agree that Romney's speech at the NAACP was a winner. Not that he was going to change any minds, but that he went into the lion's den, spoke real truth to power about the plight of black America and forced the totally corrupt NAALCP to see how far they have fallen.
Like all of leftism, the NAALCP has been totally corrupted, and follows a pathetic race baiting agenda worthy of Jackson and Sharpton, as opposed to Dr. King.
The once proud civil rights organization has become a sickening shill for leftist democratic politics. It has squandered all of its former moral authority for its 12 pieces of gold at the table of the Democrat Party.
Unlike McLame, who kissed ass and sickened us with his beltway practiced mantra of making nice with this corrupted enemy, Romney told them like it is.
If Black America wants to follow the NAALCP and Obozo over the cliff, have at it. But it ain't white America's our fault if you do!!!!
Al Adab| 7.16.12 @ 9:15AM
The once venerable NAACP has forgotten its history and purpose. Instead of being an instrument of policy, it has become an institution no longer serving those it proposes to help but rather only the interests of the organization itself.
Like many government agencies and NGOs it seeks only to increase its power, enrich its leadership maintain influence. This a sad stae but hardly uncommon. How many charitable groups pass less and less along to those they puport to help and pay ever higher salaries to its own administration. This group, like so many Left and Right, needs to be understood for what it has become not for what it once was.
2Anglico| 7.16.12 @ 9:33AM
A great thinker's words are as relevant today as they were 150 years ago. The same goes for the U.S. Constitution. There is more wisdom in one Federalist Paper than all of Obama's teleprompter emissions.
aware| 7.16.12 @ 5:45PM
The real wise men were the anti-Federalists. Reading them is like reading prophecy. The Federalists were wishful thinkers who are sadly being proved wrong even as we speak. They started being proved wrong with the Adams administration.
The creation of the central State was the end of America, it just takes time for the poison to work.
Who Knows?| 7.16.12 @ 11:07AM
NAACP?
How many ways is the even the name of this “tribe” offensive to individualism?
National? What happened to rugged individualism and federalism?
Association? Who can join, and what are the criteria?
Advancement? FORWARD!
Colored People? Aren’t we ALL “colored”? Given we all see in color, not just black and white merely, normal humans view fellow versions in a wide spectrum of “color”, so ALL “people” are physically “colored”.
We like to bemoan the gangs in poor parts of LA, say, that very young kids are “encouraged” to join, since a gang is FAMILY. Well, welcome to the NAACP.
I worked a temp job in 1984 with these two young black men at the Federal Home Loan office in SF. As a white, it was awkward at first. When I told them the amount of melanin in the skin was NOT the defining factor in us, we became very open and transcended race.
We were just regular guys, SF Giants, girls, etc.
One day, me and one of them walked the streets of SF. I was immediately shocked.
The happy dude donned a “chip on his shoulder”, and whenever we crossed paths with another black, both of them resembled boxers glaring at each other before a fight!
Poor “colored people”.
It’s the culture, that’s stupid.
Who Knows?| 7.16.12 @ 11:12AM
In America, perhaps only the long term can solve the black-white racial problem. In 100 years, intermarriage and further success by “colored people” could relegate the NAACP to irrelevance. Sort of like the communist party—an interesting but useless reminder of the bad old past.
TrueBlue | 7.16.12 @ 12:38PM
You'd think if color were the problem they would be encouraging intermarriage, no?
elsdallas| 7.16.12 @ 4:33PM
What most passes for black culture is in fact a culture of poverty that is a result of socio-economic conditions that the majority of blacks are raised in. If we remove the regulatory state that perpetuates these conditions then the culture of poverty will be replaced. A lot of social ills are economic in origin. People who are in poverty are more prone to alcholism and drug use as a way to forget their poverty for a temporary relief of their depression. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we will realize that we are broke and can't pay our bills is basically the attitude. There is a loss of hope for a better tomorrow in many neighborhoods in America. That loss of hope is growing as our economy is being dismantled piece by piece. We must rid ourselves of statist Democrats and Republicans in order to bring hope to all Americans.
By the way, I believe in the idea of free trade if all nations agree to it, but I find that trying to engage in free trade with mercantilist states (Asian Tigers like China) is stupid! Free trade with those who practice free trade and mercantilism with those who practice mercantilism is my view.
aware| 7.16.12 @ 5:48PM
Right you are, and it is all being done by the State. Everything it touches is corrupted because it is the Typhoid Mary of corruption.
Kwan| 7.16.12 @ 11:15AM
Broken down into it's essential elements the left is making the argument that to solve the non-ending problems of the underclass, we must get rid of our Constitution and allow the left to implement a Totalitarian Socialist State so that they can confiscate and redistribute wealth. Anybody buying into this line of illogical nonsense is in dire need of a brain transplant.
RJ| 7.16.12 @ 11:37AM
In all my readings, I have not found anyone more elegant and persuasive in writing about individual liberty. Here are a few additional quotes from "The Law":
"We assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to education. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. (page 29)"
"The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty. And does not experience prove this? Look at the entire world. Which countries are most peaceful, the most moral and the happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the law least interferes with private affairs; where government is least felt; where the individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest influence; where administrative powers are fewest and simplest; where taxes are lightest and most nearly equal and popular discontent the least excited and the least justifiable, …" (page 73)
While Bastiat's "The Law" is better known, "That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen" is another outstanding book.
R Martin| 7.16.12 @ 12:45PM
There is an excellent website, freetheworld.com, which quantifies economic freedom based on specified criteria and which ranks 141 countries (95% of the world's population). The economically freest countries, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand are at the top (the U.S. is down to tenth and falling) are indeed the happiest and, not surprisingly, the richest. Petronius below will find that Zimbabwe is dead last and is among the poorest.
There is plenty of evidence out there that Obama is a pox, but it is not being reported.
RJ| 7.16.12 @ 2:49PM
Thanks for the website. We have fallen a long way when part of Communist China is more free than the US. I recall a CEO of a major company recently saying that it is now harder to do business in American than in China.
I agree, Obama is a pox on this nation, but I think Mark Steyn has accurately stated the root of our problem - that is that 53% of the electorate voted for Obama. Perhaps he wasn't well known in 2008, but if he gets elected this time, there is no excuse. Americans will have abandoned freedom, personal responsibility and honesty in government. However, I don't believe Obama will win. My question is how much will the new administration and Congress put us on the right path towards legal, honest, effective & limited government. It will be up to us citizens to push them all the way to honor Constitutionally limited government.
aware| 7.16.12 @ 5:54PM
You are a scholar RJ. I suggest "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45" [Milton Mayer].
This will show you how "the people" will not stop what is coming.
RJ| 7.16.12 @ 7:18PM
Thanks for the kind words and for the recommendation. I will look into it. Coincidentally, I finished rereading Alan Bullock's "Hitler, a Study of Tyranny" last week. I am very concerned about the generational change in values in America. We still have the trappings of freedom, but in many ways, America has evolved during my lifetime to a corrupt dictatorship. I am afraid that your comment that "the people" will not change course is the likely outcome. Nonetheless, like Bastiat, we should resist it to our last breath.
aware| 7.16.12 @ 7:52PM
A dictatorship of oligarchs.
The last time there was even a modest reduction in the Federal Leviathan was the early 1920s.
Bastiat was a giant.
RJ| 7.17.12 @ 2:15AM
Thanks again for recommending Milton Meyer's book. I have reviewed comments on it over the Internet and it is exactly the type of book I am interested in. I look forward to reading it. It seems similar in concept to a BBC documentary entitled (something like) Germany's Fatal Attraction to Hitler, but it looks like Meyer's book goes into to more detail. I found Peter Longerich's book on the Holocaust to be very informative, but it was from the perspective of the German government's action, which Longerich emphasized had its objective in place on day one, but implemented it in stages to lull people to inaction (like the frog boiled so slowly that it does not realize what happened).
aware| 7.17.12 @ 6:05AM
The most unforgettable section of Meyer's book deals with just this incremental unfolding. Those who understood what was going on waited for the big outrage that would finally awaken their fellows. It never came. Instead, the next was only a little worse than the last and in this way they were trained in obedience to the State.
By steps and progressions we find ourselves at the most maniacal positions.
darcy| 7.18.12 @ 3:43AM
I'm reading McGoldrick's "Luther's English Connection," and find that "When subjects suffer under an unjust prince, they should examine themselves to discover for what sin God has sent the judgment of an oppressive ruler upon them, (page 192).
Petronius| 7.16.12 @ 11:51AM
The NAACP and their president who is now Our dictator want to turn this country into Zimbabwe. Complexion means nothing. It's their belief system Stupid!
Anthony| 7.16.12 @ 2:13PM
Ah yes, the continent of Africa. Blessed with enormous natural resourses, fertile soil, and hospitable climates.
Yet save for the few African nations that had European underpinings, Africa is a cessepool of nations filled with corruption, incompetence, and death.
Bill84728| 7.16.12 @ 1:38PM
The kind of black people for whom the NAACP speaks won't pay a moment's attention to that kind of thinking. The NAACP and their membership are convinced that white people are engaged in a conspiracy to hide the goodies from them so that they never get any part.
NAACP types once believed that if they got equality, they'd automatically get a share of the goodies. Once they attained equality, they discovered that they have to actually bend their efforts to labor to accumulate the goodies. They were convinced that this system of work, accumulate some money, save it, find a way to make it grow, and keep on doing that over and over for 30 or 40 years is a bogus system put in place only for black people. If they ever watched Saturday Night Live and saw the Eddie Murphy skit "White Like Me," for them that reflects reality.
White people are hiding the goodies and somehow have managed to include 100% of white people in keeping that secret from blacks. White people telling blacks that the way to become wealthy is to work and save is a lie from beginning to end.
JimH| 7.16.12 @ 2:31PM
The NAACP may at one time have served a useful purpose. Now, while claiming to represent all blacks, particularly the poor it serves only to advance the interests of a black middle class who is largely devoid of entrepreneurs and consists mainly of government and institutional employees, a sort of subset of the progressive nomenklatura. Romney was actually far too polite when he spoke to this august body. He only criticized Democrat policies when he should have pointed out how the policies advocated by the organization, while benefiting its membership keep poor blacks from advancing and in a constant state of dependency on the government.
TLP| 7.16.12 @ 2:39PM
The NAACP was started by 3 Rich Republican Whites, and the Original Governing Body was all White Republican Whites + 1 Black.
And, that was when it did Good Things.
darcy| 7.16.12 @ 6:00PM
Best article ever, Mr. Wilson, in describing the perennial battle between the takers and the makers. It is little wonder that the state would want to abolish the display of the Ten Commandments in America's public schools: Thou shalt not steal and Thou shalt not covet must stick in the collective's craw. The Ten Commandments apply equally to the businessman and to all people.
Our guide for living cannot be abandoned without ruinous consequences not only to our economy but to our souls. A wayward state seeks to use its greatest resource -- a nation's people -- for its own power and cares not a whit that the public is made spiritually poorer by it.
Where are today's Tocqueville and Bastiat? Men of character and principle in leadership must be bolder and stronger and fearless in confronting statism.
"If anyone will not work, let him not eat." But the state says that producers "should have toil and trouble and be in want themselves in oder to let their possessions [be taken from them] to make other people happy." (Excerpts from Martin Luther's commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, pg 117, Luther's Works, Volume 21.)
The NAACP fellow, Mr. Jealous, is nothing more than a political hack, confused at best, cunningly deceitful at worst, much like all the other malcontents down through history.
Bill84728| 7.17.12 @ 8:55AM
We have no men (people) of character and principle in public life because any person who goes into public life is so torn to bits by it that only dishonorable lickspittles will put themselves in that position. Honorable people won't lower themselves like that.