Tag: QotD

Also from Robb Allen:

So, instead of fixing security, what does the Touchin’ Squeezin’ Assaultin’ department do? That’s right, they send SIX ARMED MEN to the pilots house. They even suggested he have his CCW revoked. Because you see, the fact that he would show the TSA for the joke that it is clearly indicates he is a danger to society at large and, while he can be trusted with a 800,000+ pound aircraft full of 416 human beings and 57 thousand gallons of jet fuel, he cannot be trusted with a hand gun kept in his pocket.

That, folks, is your government at work. It is why I condemn the leftist belief that for every problem, there is an equal and opposite government solution.

Moshe Ben-David’s sigline from his blog The ComPost Files:

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.

Ohmain.

Moshe left that as a comment to This I Believe yesterday. I liked it so much, it’s been added to the masthead of this blog.

Bubba over at What Bubba Knows runs one of the best aggregation sites on the web, and also does some pretty fine commentary of his own.  Commenting on a story of riots in Rome after Berlusconi won a confidence vote, Bubba hits on the heart of the subject:

Students? No, anarchists. Raised and groomed by the socialist institutions of public education. Taught to believe that anything they want is a right, that the government that refuses their ‘rights’ to anything they want is to be pulled down and destroyed.


Workers? No, unions. Unions and their members that have grown accustomed to constant reductions in production expectations and constant increases of expectations from them. More pay, more benefits in exchange for less production. When the government teat runs dry, they have been trained to rebel.


Immigrants? No, muslims. They’ve migrated, not immigrated, to European countries where they promptly enter into the welfare systems and become bloated leeches with attitudes. While contributing nothing, they feed on the resources and wealth of their host nations. When their benefactors run out of other people’s money, the muslim migrants have learned to riot and demand their ‘rights’.


All of these parasites get their concepts of rights from a single source, a single ideal. That source is the same source of the policies that have created the need for austerity. It’s name starts with a ‘C’ … and ends with a ‘nism’, and it’s the exact opposite of Capitalism.

There otta be a dang Hilton on the Moon right now. It pains me that there is not. — RobertaX

Me too, Bobbi, me too.

Simply put, socialism is a system where citizens are promised results, not just opportunity. Our Constitution promises the “pursuit of happiness,” but does not guarantee that any particular citizen will attain anything, but will not be restricted from pursuing any legal goal. Socialism preaches that every citizen has the right to certain entitlements, and the state endeavors to provide them to its citizens. Socialists believe that under capitalism, too much wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of too few, who then exploit the less privileged. Socialists advocate a more even distribution of wealth and power, “spreading it around,” to quote a recent Obama phrase.

Under the socialist ideal, effort is rewarded, regardless of results, and accumulation of wealth by a few is prevented, so that more may enjoy the benefits of what society has to offer. The sad fact is that often even a minimal effort is not required, and everyone gets entitlements, deserved or not.

So, what is wrong with wanting to make sure that all citizens are provided for, and that more can have a better lifestyle by taking from the overabundance of the privileged few?

The problem is that to implement socialism, basic freedoms have to be curtailed or abolished. For starters, socialism is built on government ownership or very tight control of industry and commerce. This means, obviously, that citizens’ rights to freely pursue business opportunities are severely limited by the government. Property rights must also be greatly curtailed, and the personal accumulation of wealth abolished. The government becomes the arbitrator of who succeeds, and to what extent.
— Gene Retske @ I’m Sick of the Crap, “What’s wrong with a little Socialism?” from February of 2009

And, as Shepherd Book stated so succinctly in the Firefly episode “War Stories,”

A government is a body of people, usually, notably ungoverned.