Interesting Quote
 

Anyone know who said this?

"I am deeply convinced that any permanent, regular administrative system whose aim will be to provide for the needs of the poor will breed more miseries than it can cure, will deprave the population that it wants to help and comfort, will in time reduce the rich to being no more than the tenant-farmers of the poor, will dry up the sources of savings, will stop the accumulation of capital, will retard the development of trade, will benumb human industry and activity, and will culminate by bringing about a violent revolution in the State, when the number of those who receive alms will have become as large as those who give it, and the indigent, no longer being able to take from the impoverished rich the means of providing for his needs, will find it easier to plunder them of all their property at one stroke than to ask for their help."

The sentences and words are both too long for Dubya, though the sentiments are the same. Whoever wrote this omitted the most obvious and scary impact of achieving security.....the problem of the Earth's orbit decaying and everyone exploding into flame as we are hurled into the Sun.

Still, it's important to keep and understand as much as you can about this quote. Quotes like this cannot just be found everywhere.

Any idea who wrote it or when?

Ummmmm.....Adam Smith?

Assuming you reproduced the quote accurately, the syntax, grammar and spelling suggests one of the founding fathers. I'm guessing Hamilton, it sounds like something he would say, possibly in the Federalist Papers.

It's from "Democracy in America", by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Alexis de Tocqueville - and he was talking about England at a time when most people couldn't vote, the class system was much stronger than it is now, and social morals were far more strict than they are now.

All those fears proved to be unfounded. The English welfare system grew greatly, but the capitalists were never overthrown, nor ever even in serious danger. Slight adjustments to all of those things made things work out fine. The England I saw in July seemed to bear out the recent Wall Street Journal assertion that in many ways now London is supplanting New York as the world's financial capital.

Winston Churchill hated Hitler and Stalin, and fought them both. He also championed welfare for the truly poor as a way to prevent such diseases from taking hold in England. Surely we should be broad-minded enough to see that people need both morals and meals....

RKC, you're WAY of base here. It is morally and fiscally forbidden to help the needy. A HUGE mistake. It it the main cause of laziness and poor productivity. Nevermind that American and British workers are some of the most productive workers on the planet. Ultimately, the orbit decay problem will exterminate humans as a direct result of helping the needy.

And also, corporations need those safety nets removed, for obvious reasons.

"when people find they can vote themselves money it will be the end of the republic."

supposedly a jefferson qoute

Supe you are learning. We have had a profound effect on you I see. if you start to back-slide, please visit New York. There I some housing projects near me I want you to visit.

[QUOTE=varmint;3466683]"when people find they can vote themselves money it will be the end of the republic."

We all get to vote ourselves money by the Senators and Congressmen we elect: welfare and minimum wages are voted in by the poor; tax cuts and subsidies by the better off.

Is the Republic at an end?

I think if we look at things clearly, we see that things are fine. The rich are getting richer than at any time since the 1920's. Minorities and women can join their ranks because they now have rights and opportunities they could never have dreamed of back then. Both right-wing Christians AND gays are more tolerated than they were in the recent past (nothwithstanding the golden but false dreams of how things really were in some fanciful past).

Everybody is winning, albeit at the gradual pace that keeps any one group from winning faster by itself. Don't stop fighting for your particular group - it is that dynamic that drags the whole forward.....but once in awhile, just think hard about how far we've come in one lifetime....

Excellent, Gaijin. Good idea. I know there are instances where programs have not had the intended effect. Failures are important to look at and understand.

And while we're extending invitations, I can show you some programs here that are not failures. For example, we pluck 'disadvantaged' kids out of the gutter, teach them language and hygiene and social skills, and prepare them for apprenticeship programs. Some of these kids, who were headed for death or prison, are journeymen now and building roads, bridges and homes for others while owning homes themselves and saving for their kids' college. And so you see, it is with this knowledge that I read opinions like the one above. Opinions that social programs are morally and fiscally imprudent. I VIGOROUSLY disagree with that self-serving and greedy conclusion. It is simple, convenient and........treacherous. Not to mention inaccurate.

GIVE a man a fish, feed him for a day. TEACH a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.

W? Is that YOU? nah.............I forgot you Eff'd that quote up pretty badly.

RKC - I'm liking "how you roll man" :D

Nice "fishing" quote, but even though the broad idea is correct, it has been interpreted too narrowly.

Becoming self-sufficient is a good idea - and a better idea than welfare. But if the fish are over-harvested, or if the industry that a man has learned his trade in vanishes, then the parable hasn't gone far enough.

If we have no safety net, then when an industry fails, a man and his family fail. This is not the best, most dynamic economy I can conceive of. This isn't the best use of the capacity of a man. I think a little money to allow for some time off to re-train would be a higher use of our funds. This makes the economy more adaptive, and the man less likely to fall into crime. This in turn protects the safety and property of the country, just as surely as our military and police do.

Everyone gains something from this use of our tax money, just as we here in the Midwest gain something from the US Navy, even though we derive no practical, immediate benefit from it. Why? Because to live in a society where we are allowed to perform at our best, and, if we fail, allowed to try again, makes everything work better, just as the economy in Chicago works better because New York and Los Angeles are protected from amphibious landings.

That's not the way I remember it: "GIVE a man a fish, feed him for a day, TEACH a man to fish, and he'll sit in the boat and drink beer all day long" :)

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

Well, that's the way it goes down here at least.

RK...Ceeeee, ahm not uh smaht man, but I know what smaht is.....:D

Your posts are entirely too much like I think...are you me? Gee, I don't know if anyones ever QUITE articulated ideas I have had as well as you ....especially NOT me! makes me wish I'd said it but I've not the facility with language you have...damn.

Keep the ideas coming. How abut your ideas on law and order? How about....

That's heresy, RKC. I would guess from your remarks that you understand the theory behind the importance of workers noticing the pit of boiling lava beneath them, should they dare to loosen their grip. Fear is indispensable, in an economy like this one. When we drive through certain parts of the city, it is good that we can view the human refuse. "There, but for the grace of my paycheck, go I."

Dan:

Thanks for the kind words. You're doing fine :cool:

Am I you? And you me? What color am I thinking of?

And, more to the point, are you going to then install my new fuel injection lines this weekend! :D