Tea at Trianon: Dependency Breeds Complacency

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Dependency Breeds Complacency

Judge Andrew Napolitano speaks frankly on the painful truth:

Dependency breeds a sense of complacency and entitlement and fosters a government that – in order to stay in power – will further that dependency. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton agreed on little publicly, but they did agree that when the public treasury becomes a public trough and the voters recognize that, they will send to the government only those who promise them a bigger piece of the government pie. (Read entire article.)

(Via A Conservative Blog for Peace.) Share

1 comment:

The North Coast said...: I am as opposed to Welfare Statism as any Republican or Libertarian, but I beg to differ with Romney on his sweeping statements regarding the 47% who do not pay taxes.

These people are not usually welfare dependents, but the working poor who slave for minimum wage just to put a roof over their heads, college students, and single parents who make less than $30,000 a year. Or, they are SS recipients who are taking out the "savings" they were forced to pay in for 40 years of working life. Should I have to pay taxes on my savings principal when I start drawing it out?

And there are also many millionaires in this category who deduct their way almost to zero taxes, plus many, many more middle class people who have mortgage interest deductions and deductions for 6, 7 or more children that bring their tax bills to zero.

I'm subsidizing them all, but I am less resentful of "subsidizing" the working poor on whose backs the great fortunes are built, than I am the many others who are much better off than me, whose personal preferences, such as expensive houses with large mortgages and numerous children, are made possible by the people who are not subsidized at all.

Romney is correct about welfare dependency and the growth of welfare entitlements, but he conflates that dependency with the kind of poverty that our hard-working working poor, and unemployed are experiencing. Thus, he's managed to offend and alienate many of he people who might otherwise have supported him. What a goof.; September 26, 2012 at 10:51:00 PM EDT