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Showing posts with label Cato Institute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cato Institute. Show all posts

Friday, December 03, 2010

The Blindness of Rage

A friend of mine put this quote up as his Facebook status the other day.

“It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.” Lord Acton


This friend of mine is of the right leaning bend and I asked him if he knew anything about Lord Acton, in particular, his letter to General Lee at the end of the Civil War. He did not but just liked the quote because he, like many conservatives/libertarians, get their jollies out of using the government as a punching bag.

Lord Acton was a forefather of the libertarian movement in the 19th century. A British politician, historian and writer, he wrote to Lee after the South surrendered, commenting that Lee was "fighting battles for our liberty, our progress, and our civilization." My friend had no answer to this question. Let's see if any of you do.

Do states rights over a "tyrannical" government trump the actual, physical rights of human beings?

The problem we get into here is that people who think like Lord Acton (see: several of my commenters) think that only the laws they like apply to them. The ones they don't like are a product of "tyranny." This is usually the point where the Constitution comes out as baseball bat to beat people over the head. Kindly ignore the myriad of points in our nation's history where things that weren't in the Constitution (and should've been) were made into laws or put in later because THEY MADE SENSE.

One thing that I have really notice lately is the arrogance of the comments of my libertarian/conservative/whatever readers. Their anaphylactic reaction to someone who humbly suggests "It is in your best interest to _____" is nauseating.

But that's what adolescent power fantasies perpetuated by the the likes of Lord Acton, Ayn Rand, and the Cato Institute will get you...the blindness of rage. Because the simple fact is that everyone wants to govern themselves. Sorry, you don't get to...:(

From Reagan's nine scary words to Palin's death panels, a great number of incredibly moronic people now believe that the gubmint is a comin' to gin 'em...with the actual culprits laughing all the way to the bank.