how citizens respond to social problems - government control or individual action
abelard has been discussing with correspondents who should take responsibility for the support of others less capable, the State or the individual, as well as the qualities of a responsible citizen.
I am for franchise by examination and a citizen's
wage. The one ensures a person is capable of taking civic responsibilities, while the other provides an unbiased financial safety net for all.
I do not like means testing. While there is means testing, everyone and his sister moves
increasingly towards milking it for all they can. 'Parasite' is a viable life style in the corrupt systems built by the
likes of Sociaist Prime Minister Tony Bliar. Socialism is a mad and dangerous blind alley.
The more profitable being a parasite is, the more parasites you
will achieve. Of course, people like Tony Bliar and Jeremy Corbyn want
that because it means more parasite votes. Idon't want or welcome that world or that 'mind' set.
It is the old has-beens like Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine that moved the Conservative Party
to the slop side of politics and let Bliar et al have 15 years to smash UK society.
Maybe Theresa May is working to adjust the terms of discourse or maybe
she's just moving her tanks onto the Socialist constituency. As yet, I do not have enough data.
are you a mental slave?
- Correspondent: People often try to pay as little tax as possible, but they still want services like a fire engine turning up within 15 minutes when their house is ablaze
abelard: I don't - I'd rather the street pitched in.
Correspondent: They still want the ambulance to turn up in 15 minutes when their cholesterol-fuelled dinner party has given them severe chest pains.
abelard: I don't
- 1) I believe in evolution in action and
2) I would prefer the locals jumped into action and far more of them were better educated in what actions to take
Correspondent: They still want the police to turn up in 15 minutes when they see a hoody loitering by their driveway.
abelard: I don't - I want him tied up by the neighbourhood and then call the sheriff
Correspondent: It's just that they don't want to pay for this service.
abelard: Now that's true. So much of it is a thorough waste of money due to infantilising the public.
- It is not the sane job of the State to run other people's lives.
It is the sane part of the State to teach them to run their own
lives with more horse sense.
So often currently,
society is 'educating' people to be mental slaves.
-
Correspondent: Should the State support the weakest in society from the public purse?
abelard: 'The State' is not a person.
- 'The public purse' is money taken from others by force.
Repeat, I do not do 'shoulds'.
As John Maynard Keynes put it- I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.
[Letter to Duncan Grant, 15 December 1917]
I live in a society I regard as deranged. As a pragmatist, I must
adjust as best I may to other people's madness and delusions.
Here are some earlier comments on the socialist religion:
Distributism
The attack on socialism in rerum novarum (Leo XIII, 1891) recognised the problems with predatory monopoly capitalism. These ideas were developed under the label of ‘Distributism’, for example, in The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc, published in 1912. The analysis led to the widespread introduction of anti-monopoly laws in Western societies, and can be seen in Margaret Thatcher’s drive for a ‘property-owning democracy’, in David Cameron’s slogan, ‘the big society’ and in the asserted aspiration of the European Union under the label of ‘subsidiarity’.
In recent economic thinking, Hernando De Soto has written clearly and cogently on this matter. See, for example, The Mystery of Capital, for some highly recommended reading.
Currently (November 2013), there is a reasonably coherent article at Wikipedia but it cannot, of course, be relied upon to remain stable or even coherent.
related document
collectivism v. freedom, 1911 - ramsay-macdonald argues with hilaire belloc about the servile state
Review of The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc (T.N. Foulis, 1912):
In this book from just 100 years ago, Hilaire Belloc discusses a problem still propounded by socialists today, that the rich are getting richer while the middle class and poor are not. But Belloc was doing this with 100 years less experience.
Even then, Belloc knew that confiscating business by politicians would lead to an even worse state of wage slavery. However, he did recognise that 'peasants' would prefer a slave state because then they wouldn't have to think. That is, they would happily trade freedom for security.
Belloc also knew that the slave state was socially damaging, so he wanted property more widely distributed. This was termed Distributism at the time. His main concern was the ever increasing centralisation of power brought about by concentrated wealth.
What I found particularly fascinating is that, after the later State confiscation of much wealth by ideologues like Clement Attlee, property is now being spread once more through privatisation. This was an objective the writer thought to be very difficult to achieve in 1912/13. Belloc thought, because of the difficulties, that the concentration of wealth among a small number of families (the state of capitalism at that time) would be more likely tackled by government control than by wider ownership.
The book is rather disorganised and therefore difficult to read, but it is historically important as it draws on rerum novarum before the full horrors of state socialism were apparent.
Hilaire Belloc [1870 - 1953] was a Catholic Anglo-French writer, who took British citizenship in 1902. He wrote over 200 books and was known as the man who wrote a library. Belloc was a Liberal M.P. between 1906 and 1910. He is famous for his children's poems in the manner of Victorian cautionary tales such as those of Struwwelpeter.
The Chief Defect of Henry King
Was chewing little bits of String.
At last he swallowed some which tied
Itself in ugly Knots inside.
Physicians of the Utmost Fame
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their Fees,
"There is no Cure for this Disease.
"Henry will very soon be dead."
His Parents stood about his Bed
Lamenting his Untimely Death,
When Henry, with his Latest Breath,
Cried, "Oh, my Friends, be warned by me,
That Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, and Tea
Are all the Human Frame requires . . ."
With that, the Wretched Child expires.
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