Hey, You Liberals, the Power of Government Must be Limited

[bobevenson]

"Engineering Evil" is a documentary recently shown on the Military History channel. It's a story of Nazi Germany's murder campaign before and during World War II. According to some estimates, 16 million Jews and other people died at the hands of Nazis (http://tinyurl.com/6duny9).

Though the Holocaust ranks high among the great human tragedies, most people never consider the most important question: How did Adolf Hitler and the Nazis gain the power that they needed to commit such horror? Focusing solely on the evil of the Holocaust won't get us very far toward the goal of the Jewish slogan "Never Again."

When Hitler came to power, he inherited decades of political consolidation by Otto von Bismarck and later the Weimar Republic that had weakened the political power of local jurisdictions. Through the Enabling Act (1933), whose formal name was "A Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich," Hitler gained the power to enact laws with neither the involvement nor the approval of the Reichstag, Germany's parliament. The Enabling Act destroyed any remaining local autonomy. The bottom line is that it was decent Germans who made Hitler's terror possible — Germans who would have never supported his territorial designs and atrocities.

The 20th century turned out to be mankind's most barbaric. Roughly 50 million to 60 million people died in international and civil wars. As tragic as that number is, it pales in comparison with the number of people who were killed at the hands of their own government. Recently deceased Rudolph J. Rummel, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii and author of "Death by Government," estimated that since the beginning of the 20th century, governments have killed 170 million of their own citizens. Top government killers were the Soviet Union, which, between 1917 and 1987, killed 62 million of its own citizens, and the People's Republic of China, which, between 1949 and 1987, was responsible for the deaths of 35 million to 40 million of its citizens. In a distant third place were the Nazis, who murdered about 16 million Jews, Slavs, Serbs, Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians and others deemed misfits, such as homosexuals and the mentally ill.

We might ask why the 20th century was so barbaric. Surely, there were barbarians during earlier ages. Part of the answer is that during earlier times, there wasn't the kind of concentration of power that emerged during the 20th century. Had Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong and Hitler been around in earlier times, they could not have engineered the slaughter of tens of millions of people. They wouldn't have had the authority. There was considerable dispersion of jealously guarded political power in the forms of heads of provincial governments and principalities and nobility and church leaders whose political power within their spheres was often just as strong as the monarch's.

Professor Rummel explained in the very first sentence of "Death by Government" that "Power kills; absolute Power kills absolutely. ... The more power a government has, the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects." That's the long, tragic, ugly story of government: the elite's use of government to dupe and forcibly impose its will on the masses. The masses are always duped by well-intentioned phrases. After all, what German could have been against "A Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich"? It's not just Germans who have fallen prey to well-intentioned phrases. After all, who can be against the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"?

We Americans ought to keep the fact in mind that Hitler, Stalin and Mao would have had more success in their reign of terror if they had the kind of control and information about their citizens that agencies such as the NSA, the IRS and the ATF have about us. You might ask, "What are you saying, Williams?" Just put it this way: No German who died before 1930 would have believed the Holocaust possible."
-Economist Walter Williams

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Stop abusing the language you ignorant American turd.

"Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality.[1] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas such as free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and private property."

Now, is there any part of the definition of 'liberal' that you don't agree with?

[bobevenson]

Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality

Yes, especially equality, like everybody being paid the same wages, even if you have to use force to achieve it (well, I guess you might have to leave that liberty part out of it).

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality

Yes, especially equality, like everybody being paid the same wages, even if you have to use force to achieve it (well, I guess you might have to leave that liberty part out of it).

Equality doesn't mean everyone being paid the same wages, it means equal pay for equal work. How the fuck could anyone have a problem with that? You aren't a libertarian, you are a fascist/anarchist/social Darwinsit/retardist.

[bobevenson]

Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality

Yes, especially equality, like everybody being paid the same wages, even if you have to use force to achieve it (well, I guess you might have to leave that liberty part out of it).

Equality doesn't mean everyone being paid the same wages, it means equal pay for equal work. .

Exactly how do you figure out equal work, amount of work, quality of work, amount of time fucking around, disrupting other people, taking time off from work for different reasons. Oh, I know, you let the fucking government evaluate all these factors, and at the same time hire bureaucrats off the street to do it, thereby reducing unemployment.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Exactly how do you figure out equal work, amount of work, quality of work, amount of time fucking around, disrupting other people, taking time off from work for different reasons. Oh, I know, you let the fucking government evaluate all these factors, and at the same time hire bureaucrats off the street to do it, thereby reducing unemployment.

No doubt your idea of a utopia would be a return to the days of slavery, after all, slave owners were only exercising their 'freedom and liberty' to keep slaves.

[bobevenson]

Exactly how do you figure out equal work, amount of work, quality of work, amount of time fucking around, disrupting other people, taking time off from work for different reasons. Oh, I know, you let the fucking government evaluate all these factors, and at the same time hire bureaucrats off the street to do it, thereby reducing unemployment.

No doubt your idea of a utopia would be a return to the days of slavery, after all, slave owners were only exercising their 'freedom and liberty' to keep slaves.

Wherever the hell you're from, pal, and I know you're probably too embarrassed to admit it, there is something we like to call freedom in the United States. That means that buying and selling labor is the same as buying and selling anything else, it's a negotiation between buyer and seller without anybody putting a gun to your head. Understand? Fuck no, you wouldn't understand even if somebody actually did put a gun to your worthless head.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Exactly how do you figure out equal work, amount of work, quality of work, amount of time fucking around, disrupting other people, taking time off from work for different reasons. Oh, I know, you let the fucking government evaluate all these factors, and at the same time hire bureaucrats off the street to do it, thereby reducing unemployment.

No doubt your idea of a utopia would be a return to the days of slavery, after all, slave owners were only exercising their 'freedom and liberty' to keep slaves.

Wherever the hell you're from, pal, and I know you're probably too embarrassed to admit it, there is something we like to call freedom in the United States. That means that buying and selling labor is the same as buying anything else, it's a negotiation between buyer and seller without anybody putting a gun to your head. Understand? Fuck no, you wouldn't understand even if somebody actually put a gun to your worthless head.

As you are clearly insane, I should really pity you. It's not your fault you were forced to worship a piece of rag every morning from early childhood. This is child abuse btw, a complete invasion of freedom, and the reason for your country's collective national insanity.

[bobevenson]

As you are clearly insane, I should really pity you. It's not your fault you were forced to worship a piece of rag every morning from early childhood. This is child abuse btw, a complete invasion of freedom, and the reason for your country's collective national insanity.

Again, since you used the term, where is a little turd like you from anyway???

[vegetariantaxidermy]

As you are clearly insane, I should really pity you. It's not your fault you were forced to worship a piece of rag every morning from early childhood. This is child abuse btw, a complete invasion of freedom, and the reason for your country's collective national insanity.

Again, since you used the term, where is a little turd like you from anyway???

Go have a pop tart.

[bobevenson]

As you are clearly insane, I should really pity you. It's not your fault you were forced to worship a piece of rag every morning from early childhood. This is child abuse btw, a complete invasion of freedom, and the reason for your country's collective national insanity.

Again, since you used the term, where is a little turd like you from anyway???

Go have a pop tart.

I'd like to shove one up your ass (oh, I'm sorry, I meant arse since you sound like a limey).

[vegetariantaxidermy]

I'd like to shove one up your ass (oh, I'm sorry, I meant arse since you sound like a limey).

Showing more of your American ignorance. Actually an 'ass' is a donkey. Arse is arse, even in America, except most Americans are illiterate and don't know it.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

I know the truth hurts, but you need to learn to suck it up.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Too many pop tarts.

[bobevenson]

You lead a very sheltered life, my friend, but that's a nice picture of you.