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  • From: bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Half of U.S. "on the dole"
  • Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 09:02:00 -0800 (PST)


This was just published this am. It certainly makes aperson think about how
the U.S. has changed since qwe were children It is not a long commentary, I
posted an excerpt and a link ....bobford


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November 8, 2008 7:00 AM

The Death of the American Idea
An electorate living high off the entitlement hog.

By Mark Steyn


(Excerpt):


"I disagree with my fellow conservatives who think the
Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Frank liberal behemoth will so obviously screw up that
they'll be routed in two or four years' time. The President-elect's so-called
“tax cut” will absolve 48 per cent of Americans from paying any federal
income tax at all, while those that are left will pay more. Just under half
the population will be, as Daniel Henninger pointed out in the Wall Street
Journal, on the dole.

By 2012, it will be more than half, and this will be an electorate where the
majority of the electorate will be able to vote itself more lollipops from
the minority of their compatriots still dumb enough to prioritize
self-reliance, dynamism, and innovation over the sedating cocoon of the nanny
state. That is the death of the American idea — which, after all, began as an
economic argument: “No taxation without representation" is a great rallying
cry. “No representation without taxation” has less mass appeal. For how do
you tell an electorate living high off the entitlement hog that it's
unsustainable and you've got to give some of it back?

At that point, America might as well apply for honorary membership in the
European Union. It will be a nation at odds with the spirit of its founding,
and embarking on decline from which there are few escape routes. In 2012, the
least we deserve is a choice between the collectivist assumptions of the
Democrats, and a candidate who stands for individual liberty — for economic
dynamism not the sclerotic “managed capitalism” of Germany; for the First
Amendment, not Canadian-style government regulation of approved opinion; for
self-reliance and the Second Amendment, not the security state in which
Britons are second only to North Koreans in the number of times they're
photographed by government cameras in the course of going about their daily
business.

In Forbes this week, Claudia Rosett issued a stirring defense of individual
liberty. That it should require a stirring defense at all is a melancholy
reflection on this election season. Live free — or die from a thousand
beguiling caresses of nanny-state sirens. "

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDcxYWNiZTVkNjZkY2I1YmUyMjQzNzc4Y2FjNzI4MjA=







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