Thread: What the Democrats have given us

Interesting note for the Boortz webpage

This alert came from a listeners. He was reading "The Bad Boy of Baltimore" a biography of H.L. Mencken by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers. On page 409 of that book he finds the following"




"By the mid-1930's, thanks to the New Deal, all that self-reliance had changed, prompting Mencken to declare: 'There is no genuine justice in any scheme of feeding and coddling the loafer whose only ponderable energies are devoted wholly to reproduction. Nine-tenths of the rights he bellows for are really privileges and he does nothing to deserve them.' Despite the billions spent on an individual, 'he can be lifted transiently but always slips back again.' Thus, the New Deal had been 'the most stupendous digenetic enterprise ever undertaken by man.... We not only acquired a vast population of morons, we have inculcated all morons, old or young, with the doctrine that the decent and industrious people of the country are bound to support them for all time. The effects of that doctrine are bound to be disastrous soon or late.'

When someone asked, "And what, Mr. Mencken, would you do about the unemployed?" He looked up with a bland expression. "We could start by taking away their vote," he said, deadpan. Mencken was not surprised when the majority disagreed. "There can be nothing even remotely approaching a rational solution of the fundamental national problems until we face them in a realistic spirit," he later reflected, and that was impossible so long as educated Americans remained responsive "to the Roosevelt buncombe."

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The old "if you rob Peter to pay for things for Paul you can always count on Paul's vote".

Originally Posted by Stinger

Interesting note for the Boortz webpage

This alert came from a listeners. He was reading "The Bad Boy of Baltimore" a biography of H.L. Mencken by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers. On page 409 of that book he finds the following"




"By the mid-1930's, thanks to the New Deal, all that self-reliance had changed, prompting Mencken to declare: 'There is no genuine justice in any scheme of feeding and coddling the loafer whose only ponderable energies are devoted wholly to reproduction. Nine-tenths of the rights he bellows for are really privileges and he does nothing to deserve them.' Despite the billions spent on an individual, 'he can be lifted transiently but always slips back again.' Thus, the New Deal had been 'the most stupendous digenetic enterprise ever undertaken by man.... We not only acquired a vast population of morons, we have inculcated all morons, old or young, with the doctrine that the decent and industrious people of the country are bound to support them for all time. The effects of that doctrine are bound to be disastrous soon or late.'

When someone asked, "And what, Mr. Mencken, would you do about the unemployed?" He looked up with a bland expression. "We could start by taking away their vote," he said, deadpan. Mencken was not surprised when the majority disagreed. "There can be nothing even remotely approaching a rational solution of the fundamental national problems until we face them in a realistic spirit," he later reflected, and that was impossible so long as educated Americans remained responsive "to the Roosevelt buncombe."

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The old "if you rob Peter to pay for things for Paul you can always count on Paul's vote".

Is that how you interpret it? Interesting. Odd, but interesting.

I interpret it as you are guaranteed your vote despite owning land or not, a very basic tenet of this country.

Originally Posted by Think for myself

Is that how you interpret it? Interesting. Odd, but interesting.

I interpret it as you are guaranteed your vote despite owning land or not, a very basic tenet of this country.

Very basic tenet of this country? Only landowners could vote in the United States until 1856.

Originally Posted by Defensor

Very basic tenet of this country? Only landowners could vote in the United States until 1856.

And why was the law changed? Care to share with us?

Originally Posted by Think for myself

And why was the law changed? Care to share with us?

Why does it matter? Your assertion that landless enfranchisement was a "basic tenet of this country" was pure bunk.

Originally Posted by Defensor

Why does it matter? Your assertion that landless enfranchisement was a "basic tenet of this country" was pure bunk.

Well, since you won't answer I will.

What happens when only land owners can vote, is they end up making laws that are much more favorable and profitable to themselves. By the OP proposing that those receiving any form of government assistance not being able to vote, it would surely return us to a time where the upper class ruled all, and everyone else would return to being serfs.

Originally Posted by Defensor

Very basic tenet of this country? Only landowners could vote in the United States until 1856.

Basic tenant, no one is guarantied a vote.

Originally Posted by Stinger

Basic tenant, no one is guarantied a vote.

Really? Care to expand on that?

Originally Posted by Think for myself

Well, since you won't answer I will.

What happens when only land owners can vote, is they end up making laws that are much more favorable and profitable to themselves. By the OP proposing that those receiving any form of government assistance not being able to vote, it would surely return us to a time where the upper class ruled all, and everyone else would return to being serfs.

Those who do not own property have no permanent stake in the country's interests. The Founding Fathers foresaw the fact that if you give a landless majority the right to vote, they will vote to take away the property of the landowners. The ideal solution is to create the conditions that allow more people to own property. Right now in the United States, power is concentrated in a smaller group than ever before.

We are below serf-status in twenty first century America.

Originally Posted by James Madison

In civilized communities, property as well as personal rights is an essential object of the laws, which encourage industry by securing the enjoyment of its fruits: that industry from which property results, and that enjoyment which consists not merely in its immediate use, but in its posthumous destination to objects of choice and of kindred affection.

In a just and a free government, therefore, the rights both of property and of persons ought to be effectually guarded. Will the former be so in case of a universal and equal suffrage? Will the latter be so in case of a suffrage confined to the holders of property?

As the holders of property have at stake all the other rights common to those without property, they may be the more restrained from infringing, as well as the less tempted to infringe the rights of the latter. It is nevertheless certain, that there are various ways in which the rich may oppress the poor; in which property may oppress liberty; and that the world is filled with examples. It is necessary that the poor should have a defence against the danger.

On the other hand, the danger to the holders of property can not be disguised, if they be undefended against a majority without property. Bodies of men are not less swayed by interest than individuals, and are less controlled by the dread of reproach and the other motives felt by individuals. Hence the liability of the rights of property, and of the impartiality of laws affecting it, to be violated by legislative majorities having an interest real or supposed in the injustice: Hence agrarian laws, and other leveling schemes: Hence the cancelling or evading of debts, and other violations of contracts. We must not shut our eyes to the nature of man, nor to the light of experience. Who would rely on a fair decision from three individuals if two had an interest in the case opposed to the rights of the third? Make the number as great as you please, the impartiality will not be increased, nor any further security against injustice be obtained, than what may result from the greater difficulty of uniting the wills of a greater number.

In all governments there is a power which is capable of oppressive exercise. In monarchies and aristocracies oppression proceeds from a want of sympathy and responsibility in the government towards the people. In popular governments the danger lies in an undue sympathy among individuals composing a majority, and a want of responsibility in the majority to the minority. The characteristic excellence of the political system of the U. S. arises from a distribution and organization of its powers, which at the same time that they secure the dependence of the government on the will of the nation, provides better guards than are found in any other popular government against interested combinations of a majority against the rights of a minority.

The United States have a precious advantage also in the actual distribution of property particularly the landed property; and in the universal hope of acquiring property. This latter peculiarity is among the happiest contrasts in their situation to that of the old world, where no anticipated change in this respect, can generally inspire a like sympathy with the rights of property. There may be at present, a majority of the nation, who are even freeholders, or the heirs, or aspirants to freeholds. And the day may not be very near when such will cease to make up a majority of the community. But they cannot always so continue. With every admissible subdivision of the arable lands, a populousness not greater than that of England or France, will reduce the holders to a minority. And whenever the majority shall be without landed or other equivalent property and without the means or hope of acquiring it, what is to secure the rights of property against the danger from an equality and universality of suffrage, vesting complete power over property in hands without a share in it: not to speak of a danger in the mean time from a dependence of an increasing number on the wealth of a few? In other countries this dependence results in some from the relations between landlords and tenants in other both from that source, and from the relations between wealthy capitalists and indigent laborers. In the U. S. the occurrence must happen from the last source; from the connection between the great capitalists in manufactures and commerce and the members employed by them. Nor will accumulations of capital for a certain time be precluded by our laws of descent and of distribution; such being the enterprise inspired by free institutions, that great wealth in the hands of individuals and associations, may not be unfrequent. But it may be observed, that the opportunities, may be diminished, and the permanency defeated by the equalizing tendency of the laws.

Originally Posted by Defensor

Those who do not own property have no permanent stake in the country's interests. The Founding Fathers foresaw the fact that if you give a landless majority the right to vote, they will vote to take away the property of the landowners. The ideal solution is to create the conditions that allow more people to own property. Right now in the United States, power is concentrated in a smaller group than ever before.

We are below serf-status in twenty first century America.

You know, for a Ron Paul fan, you sure seem to be advocating the Republican stance.