Filename: PoliticalQuotes-Ross-Bastiat-Mencken-Superman.txt Ross - April 6, 2014 @ 3pm: Political Quotes Russ, The first one is the 1920 quote I told you about and one of the last is an observation by Bastiat who died in the 1800s. The Superman concept is nothing new as shown by his discussion of it. Humans have a potential to be evil and some of us control it and others feed it as they amass wealth and power deeming themselves to be the elite who guide the inept through life. "As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron." -- H.L. Mencken (born 1880 - died 1956) was a journalist, satirist, critic -- and a Democrat. He wrote this editorial while working for the Baltimore Evening Sun. It appeared in the July 26, 1920 edition: The problem we face with the Progressives is due to => "It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man." Albert Einstein This quote was translated into English an article appearing in the Czech Republic as published in the Prager Zeitung of 28 April 2010. “The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president." "The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.” The Superman Idea The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority. They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority. The Socialists Reject Free Choice Please understand that I do not dispute their right to invent social combinations, to advertise them, to advocate them, and to try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk. But I do dispute their right to impose these plans upon us by law—by force—and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes. I do not insist that the supporters of these various social schools of thought—the Proudhonists, the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the Universitarists, and the Protectionists—renounce their various ideas. I insist only that they renounce this one idea that they have in common: They need only to give up the idea of forcing us to acquiesce to their groups and series, their socialized projects, their free- credit banks, their Graeco-Roman concept of morality, and their commercial regulations. I ask only that we be permitted to decide upon these plans for ourselves; that we not be forced to accept them, directly or indirectly, if we find them to be contrary to our best interests or repugnant to our consciences. But these organizers desire access to the tax funds and to the power of the law in order to carry out their plans. In addition to being oppressive and unjust, this desire also implies the fatal supposition that the organizer is infallible and mankind is incompetent. But, again, if persons are incompetent to judge for themselves, then why all this talk about universal suffrage? -- Frederick Bastiat 1801 – 1850 “The total number of federal regulatory restrictions now exceeds one million.” -- The New York Times, November 16, 2013 “Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.” -- Walter E. Williams'' Some of these are redundant, but well worth the repetition. I need to go clear a drain and change a light fixture so that I can have fun doing my 2008 taxes which brings to mind, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” -- Chief Justice John Marshall said in 1832 in McColluch v. Maryland Love ya Bro, Ross