“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
Ben Franklin
Posted on 04/19/2009 3:20:49 PM PDT by Para-Ord.45
If the Constitution and the Federalist Papers are our secular scriptures, surely it is Tocqueville who provided our talmud: a compilation of commentary, insight, analysis, anecdote and even prophecy. If he wrote and thought in the early 19th Century, he could see the America of the 20th and 21st coming.
Tocqueville's immediate observations were those of an observant Frenchman touring Jacksonian America in all its uproarious variety. He recorded what he saw with the rare perspective that only distance can lend, and the dispassionate eloquence only a sympathetic foreigner might bring to a still new country.
...What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.
Tocqueville envisioned a ruling power that would be "absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?"
Tocqueville didn't use our contemporary term, the nanny state, but he described it with some precision, and a wry detachment. The soft tyranny he envisioned "covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people . . . . "
"I have always thought," he added, with his usual insight, "that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people.''
If you doubt the relevance of Alexis de Tocqueville's dusty old ideas to today's bright, shiny Twittering America, just look around at the web of beneficent regulations we follow from dawn to dusk, and that hovers over us even as we sleep on mattresses with tags we are enjoined not to remove under penalty of law. Or just try to fill out your own income tax form without being shown the way by a certified (public accountant) guide.
Whether by intention, accident or just inertia, the maze of rules and regulations, each with its own extensive bureaucracy to administer it, keeps growing-much like the Internal Revenue Code. And all of it is always For Our Own Good, of course.
The video is a description of the 5 supposed forms of government, from 100% government control (Communism, fascism, totalitarianism etc) to 0% government (anarchy) it obliterates all forms of government as only temporary and futile except for 2, oligarchy and republic. It does this in a clear concise manner, which effectively shows even a grade schooler about them. It then, in the last few moments, explains Rome, its beginning as a republic, and its morph into a democracy. The parallels are well put, and clearly where this country is today. It is an excellent way to spread the word to those who have never been taught proper history, and that is alot of people since they have been re writing it for so long now.
I have been posting this sucker all over all day, and sometimes I forget that some are stuck at work, so I have included the above basic description of the video, however it does not do the video justice. I beg, implore and urge all to view it who have not. THIS is the reason we are so angry. Taxes are a symptom, losing our republic is the disease!!!!!
http://www.marchforliberty.org/multimedialinks.html
“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
Ben Franklin
Good post.
it won’t stay ‘soft’ very long
obama`s got a totalitiarian boner for yous all
Amen! We got the government we deserved, now lets get the government we WANT!!
Love your eagles up!
Yeah, I can see how the ‘ver r your papers?’ thing is really going to go well, taxes on breathing and loss of buying power in the name of giving the DC elitists even more control. These and the people supporting the Constitution and status as former military/fighting for the US as enemies of the state.
I would say you can’t make this stuff up, but apparently, you can.
/ ridicule.
She is as graceful and awe inspiring as a B2 delivering its payload!
Once in "absolute" control, the tyrants will implement their true objective...violent repression of all individual thought processes.
It should be noted that this has already been obtained via the "soft tyranny" route for the last couple of generations of children whose parents have criminally abused them by enrolling them in government schools.
Sometime, within the next few years, it will be time to deal with the older generations, at least half of whom, may have some semblance of individuality and the desire for freedom within them.
The coming Cap & Trade sham will destroy the rest of the country, and it is intentional.
First open gun grab could be the 2nd shot heard around the world.
bookmark
Good presentation. I’m using this one for sure.
Oops, I meant post 2. heh.
>The coming Cap & Trade sham will destroy the rest of the country, and it is intentional.
>
>First open gun grab could be the 2nd shot heard around the world.
Let us be prepared; let us be well-trained, and let us have stockpiled, and let us seek God’s help in battle... if He is on our side, then who can stand against us?
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