Who Poses the Greater Threat? --- socialists On Mar 2, 7:22 am, "M. Johnson" <[email protected]> wrote: > Who Poses the Greater Threat?Walter E. Williams > Tuesday, March 02, 2010 > Bill Gates is the world's richest person, but what kind of power does he have > over you? Can he force your kid to go to a school you do not want him to > attend? Can he deny you the right to braid hair in your home for a living? It > turns out that a local politician, who might deny us the right to earn a > living and dictates which school our kid attends, has far greater power over > our lives than any rich person. Rich people can gain power over us, but to do > so, they must get permission from our elected representatives at the federal, > state or local levels. For example, I might wish to purchase sugar from a > Caribbean producer, but America's sugar lobby pays congressmen hundreds of > thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to impose sugar import tariffs > and quotas, forcing me and every other American to purchase their more > expensive sugar. > Politicians love pitting us against the rich. All by themselves, the rich > have absolutely no power over us. To rip us off, they need the might of > Congress to rig the economic game. It's a slick political sleight-of-hand > where politicians and their allies amongst the intellectuals, talking heads > and the news media get us caught up in the politics of envy as part of their > agenda for greater control over our lives. > The sugar lobby is just one example among thousands. Just ask yourself: Who > were the major recipients of the billions of taxpayer bailout dollars, the > so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)? The top recipients of TARP > handouts included companies such as Citibank, AIG, Goldman Sachs and General > Motors. Their top management are paid tens of millions dollars to run > companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy, were it not for billions of > dollars in taxpayer money. Politicians preach the politics of envy whilst > reaching into the ordinary man's pockets, through the IRS, and handing it > over to their favorite rich people and others who make large contributions to > their election efforts. > The bottom line is that it is politicians first and their supporters amongst > intellectuals who pose the greatest threat to liberty. Dr. Thomas Sowell > amply demonstrates this in his brand-new book, "Intellectuals and Society," > in which he points out that: "Scarcely a mass-murdering dictator of the > twentieth century was without his intellectual supporters, not simply in his > own country, but also in foreign democracies ... Lenin, Stalin, Mao and > Hitler all had their admirers, defenders and apologists among the > intelligentsia in Western democratic nations, despite the fact that these > dictators each ended up killing people of their own country on a scale > unprecedented even by despotic regimes that preceded them." > While American politicians and intellectuals have not reached the depths of > tyrants such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, they share a common vision. > Tyrants denounce free markets and voluntary exchange. They are the chief > supporters of reduced private property rights, reduced rights to profits, and > they are anti-competition and pro-monopoly. They are pro-control and > coercion, by the state. These Americans who run Washington, and their > intellectual supporters, believe they have superior wisdom and greater > intelligence than the masses. They believe they have been ordained to > forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Like any other tyrant, they > have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others. A > tyrant's primary agenda calls for the elimination or attenuation of the > market. Why? Markets imply voluntary exchange and tyrants do trust that > people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. > Therefore, they seek to replace the market with economic planning and > regulation, which is little more than the forcible superseding of other > people's plans by the powerful elite. > We Americans have forgotten founder Thomas Paine's warning that "Government, > even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an > intolerable > one."http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2010/03/02/who_poses_the_greater_threat
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