A Dying Republic

An article about the warnings issued by our Founders and how ignoring them has helped us get ourselves into this pickle.

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. - John Adams

I'd read that before but had forgotten it. Unfortunately, we've passed that moment already. Many people in this country now believe they're entitled to whatever they want, whenever they want it, and that private property "goes against the collective good" of society. That insidious idea started with the communists in the 40s and was picked up by the hippies in the 60s. It is now pervasive in universities.

Joe McCarthy tried to warn us. He tried to explain that you had to purge the infection with fire before it spread and killed the body, but we refused to listen. It was distasteful to our refined sensibilities. Now it's too late and we're dying of the infection. I'll leave you with that thought and another quote, this one from Heinlein:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded--here and there, now and then--are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck.”

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Hat-tip to Vizigoth