Saturday, June 27, 2009

The Statist

I've just begun reading Mark Levin's book Liberty and Tyranny. In the first chapter, page 8, he writes a nice paragraph summarizing the appetites and tactics of a Statist.
And yet, the Statist has an insatiable appetite for control. His sights are set on his next meal even before he has bully digested his last. He is constantly agitating for government action. And in furtherance of that purpose, the Statist speaks in the tongue of the demagogue, concocting one pretext and grievance after another to manipulate public perceptions and build popular momentum for the divestiture of liberty and property from its rightful possessors. The industrious, earnest, and successful are demonized as perpetrators of various offences against the public good, which justifies governmental intervention on behalf of an endless parade of 'victims.' In this way, the perpetrator and the victim are subordinated to the government's authority--the former by outright theft, the latter by a dependent existence. In truth, both are made victims by the real perpetrator, the Statist.
A little more...
The Statist veils his pursuits in moral indignation, intoning in high dudgeon the injustices and inequities of liberty and life itself, for which on he can provide justice and bring a righteous resolution. And when the resolution proves elusive, as it undoubtedly does.... the Statist demands ever more authority to wring out the imperfections of mankind's existence.
It's real simple stuff, but apparently hard to come by in the general character of our present culture. Any society that would elect the likes of an Al Franken or even consider the passage of 'Cap & Trade,' etc., has to have its character and/or sanity questioned.

1 comment:

ReasonableCitizen said...

The statist wants to centralize power in government. He does not seek it for himself. If he did, he would be a Capitalist like JP Morgan.

One problem we have is the 17th amendment. It took control of the Federal government away from the State's. We should repeal that Amendment because it has led to a burgeoning federal government with no one and no group powerful enough to stop it.
When the State government chose its representatives, it chose people to represent its own interests.It is true that many of them were elected by the people of the state but the 17th Amendment severed the bond of the politician from the State government's interest and substituted Federal interest. The overt control of the national political parties by lobbyists was thwarted before the 17th Amendment. We have become the Federal States of America instead of the United States of America.
I don't know that all businesses are demonized as the author suggests but surely bad businesses are.
I don't like Mark Levin because he is not American. He is a partisan and tries to convince you that only Republicans are Americans. And that is a bald-faced lie.
When most of the American workers were union, they were the most patriotic group in America. Now guys like Levin try to convince you that police unions, plumber unions, electrical worker unions, and firefighter unions are socialists in disguise.
I am not buying that, are you?