Quotes of the Day:
“The State is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” — Frederic Bastiat, French economist of the 19th Century
“How did I go bankrupt? Two ways. Slowly, and then all of a sudden.” — paraphrased from “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway
“May you live in interesting times.” — a proverbial Chinese curse
Subject: The End of Statism (after its rise)
President Bush and the Republican Congress expanded government more than any administration in history. They also laid the basic foundations for a future police state. Now, President Obama and the Democratic Congress have . . .
- Retained, and in some cases expanded, all the Bush-era policies — the wars, the PATRIOT Act, warrantless spying, REAL ID, imprisonment without due process, extraordinary rendition, etc.
- Begun to extend the already existing foundations for a future socialist state with things like direct government ownership of businesses, the health care bill, cap and trade, and a host of other measures big and small
Put the Bush and Obama policies together, sprinkle in a couple more terrorist attacks, and one or two more state-caused financial calamities, and you have a recipe for . . .
- The destruction of American liberty
- The blossoming of a Leviathan State
Read the signs . . .
We are living through a Statist revolution.
Statism is a mindset that prefers coercion to cooperation. Statists love the State because they are blind to its fundamental nature . . .
- The State is a monopoly that you cannot easily fire, replace, or even control
- Everything the State does relies on coercion
If you decide that . . .
- You don’t want to pay for, or be subject to, the new health care plan, or that . . .
- You prefer to buy and sell using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve Notes, or that . . .
- You want to do, or not do, a host of other things that the politicians either require or prohibit,
- Then eventually a policeman will come to your door and threaten you with a gun, to make you submit
People who advocate expansive State action are really saying, “I think you should be threatened with, or actually suffer violence, if you don’t fund my pet schemes, or live the way I think you should.”
Such people would never go door to door pointing a gun at their neighbors, but the second-hand mechanism of the State allows them to hide their eyes from the violence implicit in what they profess.
Our government was founded to limit this kind of coercion. The American State was given two main functions . . .
- To punish coercion committed by one citizen against another
- To deter coercion by foreign States
Beyond that, nearly the entire Constitution is devoted to prohibiting State violence. This was the purpose of the divisions of power, the checks and balances, and the Bill of Rights. But now those protections lie in tatters.
Everyone is trying to use the State to live at the expense of everyone else, or to micro-manage their neighbors. Our traditional culture of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and peaceful, non-violent cooperation, is slowly dying. We are nearing a point where it may even die completely, suddenly, when we least expect it. As a result . . .
We live under the Chinese curse of interesting times. But we urge you to resist despair. We are even prepared to predict . . .
The End of Statism
Our reason is simple. Statism doesn’t work. The violence at its heart always . . .
- Destroys more than it creates
- Multiplies its victims, who become increasingly deperate enough to resist
Our purpose is to recruit and organize that resistance into an army. It’s . . .
- Why we do
- What we do
- The way we do it
We know that successful resistance will come slowly, before it comes suddenly. Victory will take time, but the time’s going to pass anyway, so why not use it wisely? This is why . . .
We reject all “get powerful quick” schemes as inherently unworkable. We know that societies and movements evolve slowly more often than they leap. History is littered with causes that failed because they couldn’t wait to succeed.
We neither need, nor expect, overnight success. Do you?
What we need instead is constant and consistent progress. And for that we need you, and for you to need us.
Remember where we’re going. We’re building toward the day when we can . . .
- Reach everyone, everywhere, every day, with the case for freedom and against Statism
- Build a big parade — a movement — in front of which opportunistic politicians will want to march. They’ll claim we’re following them, and we’ll let them think that!
- Deploy a huge army to exert relentless, resistance-numbing pressure on Congress, to make them submit
And remember how we’re going to get there . . .
- Slowly and steadily, but also surely
- One person at a time
- One dollar at a time
- One simple action at a time
- With each small step building toward the next larger step
The end of the month is here. We did more this month than we did last month. Now we need your financial support to do even more in November. Please . . .
- Start a monthly credit card pledge
- Or make a one-time donation
- You can do so here
Your support is our progress.
Perry Willis
Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.