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  • From: "Melody O." <melody AT crecon.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Self-service and more payback to bigcontributors by the DC Whorehouse
  • Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:59:25 -0700

At 10:18 AM 3/2/05 -0700, you wrote:
>
>>While it is true that
>>this law will aid the rich, who is more qualified for that law than our
>>national leaders? They, instead of making a law to help America, are
>>simply making a law to help themselves, which is what Democracy *not* a
>>Republic, is all about.
>
>Not my definition of democracy. But that aside, are you happy with the
results?

No. But I have a very different mindset that most. First of all, I don't
think it is governments place to be meddling in private businesses and
second, I feel that bankruptcy is simply legalized theft.

I disagree with the forms of bankruptcy that allows the person declaring
bankruptcy to keep the products purchased while not having to pay the tab.
IMO these kind of laws are hurting businesses *and* the person declaring
bankruptcy. In the first case, the businesses have to eat the costs; in
the second, the moral fiber of our country becomes tattered. What happens
when people think that they are not accountable for their actions? They
quit acting responsibly, and that is exactly what we are looking at with
bankruptcy.

I would love to know the number of people who only declare one bankruptcy
as compared to those with repeat bankruptcies. One person I know is only
34 and has already declared bankruptcy three times. Bankruptcy has simply
become an easy way out of a difficult situation.

As for the reference to democracy, the following quotes will explain better
what I mean. Some are wonderful, some (one in particular) are silly, but
all explain the problems with a true democracy:

In Robert Heinlein's book To Sail Beyond The Sunset, character Lazarus Long
explains:
"A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote
and all votes count equally has no internal feedback for self correction.
It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens...which is
opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is
supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will
always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But
what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees
it...which for the majority translates as 'Bread and Circuses'

"Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which
there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a
state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite,
that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs
discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and
that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will
do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the
state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome."
(To Sail Beyond the Sunset, 227)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only
exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from
the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the
result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always
followed by dictatorship.
- Alexander Fraser Tyler,'The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic'.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that
power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to
the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their characters by
agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles
increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I
can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that
unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of them."
- Alexis de Tocqueville

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TM2000-25: 118-120 DEMOCRACY: A government of the masses. Authority derived
through mass meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in
mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic-negating property
rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall
regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion,
prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would
be a pizza. Every pair of pants, even those in a Brooks Brothers suit,
would be stone-washed denim. Celebrity diet and exercise books would be the
only thing on the shelves at the library. And since women are a majority of
the population, we'd all be married to Mel Gibson.
- P.J. O'Rourke, "Parliament of Whores"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! - Benjamin Franklin






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