Wednesday, February 22, 2012

We live in "sinful and tyrannical" times

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." -- Thomas Jefferson

12 comments:

Andrei said...

I believe that is a slight misquote but the gist of it remains the same.

And it is true - the things the New Zealand tax payer pays for would make you spit.

The "struggler" bringing up his family having to pay for lesbians to attend queer studies conferences for example.

And abortion of course.

my goodness Lindsay that word verification thing is over the top six goes to find a readable one

Anonymous said...

And the poor lesbians having to subsidise bigots families and not even getting to have the free abortions.

At least we can both agree that a billion dollars each year wasted on prohibition is too much.

me

Viking said...

Lindsay can you set your comments to open in a new window Please. Thanks. It so much better not to have to go backwards.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Viking, Do you know what setting I should select to achieve that? The only options I can identify are the current setting "full page", "embedded" "pop-up window" or "hide".

WWallace said...

I believe the correct quote is "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."

He is right, of course. And it applies not only to central government, but also to rate payers.

Anonymous said...

I believe that this is called a Democracy my dears.

Mark Hubbard said...

To 10.36am, and a democracy is a tyranny of the majority: a long, long way from a (prosperous) free society. We need to move to a constitutional minarchy and laissez faire before it's too late: it is already for Europe and the US as Keynesian socialism destroys their economies.

Anonymous said...

So Socialism is the only thing that destroyed their economies?Think again...Old fashioned greed might be closer?

Peter Pumkinhead said...

Anonymous, this is a blog of reason, not regurgitation.

Anonymous said...

Reason?Yeah right!You lot are just grumpy old people.

Dave Christian said...

Anon is correct; Greed is the problem.

Private sector greed is mitigated by competitive forces, public information and shame, and legal processes.

Public sector greed is mitigated poorly by voters who are often ignorant and sometimes motivated by promises which amount to legalised bribery.

In time the largely unfettered public sector will grow too large to be sustained by the sometimes over-fettered private sector.

This will be a tragedy for the most vulnerable in our society, of whom there are now more than ever before thanks to the incentives encountered by public sector leaders.

Anonymous said...

So there Mr Pumpkinhead....