So I just finished Fredric Bastiat's masterpiece of socialist repellent, "The Law", which, IMHO is probably the most brilliant treatise on the subject of liberty ever written. If you didn't know better, you'd swear you were reading the work of a 21st century author, not a 19th century economist/political philosopher.One particular section really hit home with me where he writes about how the socialists of his time were either elitist snobs or contradictory knuckleheads. You see, I’ve had a few run-ins with 21st century socialists, a.k.a. Democrats, who really aren’t that different than their 19th century counterparts. Both share the same condescending attitude that “the people are not capable of governing themselves”. I’ve heard this pillar of socialist wisdom countless times in discussions and from local democratic congressional candidates.
After one of these recent discussions, I got to thinking, “so exactly WHO or WHAT is supposed to govern us then, HAL?” After all, aren’t politicians “people” too? Bastiat takes it a step further, basically saying: “If people aren’t capable of governing themselves, why in the world do people, a.k.a. YOU, person who believes people are incapable of governing themselves, have the right to VOTE”? After all, if you are incapable of governing yourself, why should you be entrusted with the awesome responsibility of electing your representatives?
Bastiat goes on to point out that those that espouse this condescending opinion of mankind naturally do not include themselves in the category of lowly incapables, proving his hypothesis that socialists, or rather, Democrats of both centuries are either elitist snobs or contradictory idiots.
So the next time one of your friendly neighborhood Democrats states that “people are too irresponsible or incapable of governing themselves”, when defending their socialist ideology, pull out your lighter and kindly ask them to hand over their voter registration cards for incineration.
[EDIT] Lest I be accused of being Pro-Anti-Democrat, I must give credit to the Democrats for being open about their elitist mentality. The GOP simply pays lip service to the concept of "government by the people"...they tell us what we want to hear during the elections and promptly start treating us like serfs once in office.
