Fight The Tyrannies That Are Created For Our Own Good

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, has called for states to mandate a total ban on cellphone usage while driving.

She has also encouraged electronics manufacturers — via recommendations to the Wireless Association and the Consumer Electronics Association — to develop features that "disable the functions of portable electronic devices within reach of the driver when a vehicle is in motion."

That means she wants to be able to turn off your cellphone while you're driving. With very little evidence, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration claims there were some 3,092 roadway fatalities last year that involved distracted drivers.

Americans ought to totally reject Hersman's agenda. It's the camel's nose into the tent. Down the road, we might expect mandates against talking to passengers while driving or putting on lipstick. They may even mandate the shutdown of drive-in restaurants as a contributory factor to driver distraction through eating while driving.

You say, "Come on, Williams, you're paranoid. There are already laws against distracted driving, and it would never come to that!" Let's look at some other camels' noses into tents.

During the legislative debate before enactment of the 16th Amendment, Republican President William Taft and congressional supporters argued that only the rich would ever pay federal income taxes. In fact, in 1913, only one-half of 1% of income earners were affected. Those earning $250,000 a year in today's dollars paid 1%, and those earning $6 million in today's dollars paid 7%.

The 16th Amendment never would have been enacted had Americans not been duped into believing that only the rich would pay income taxes. It was simply a lie to exploit American gullibility and envy.

The fact of the matter is that the founders of our nation so feared the imposition of direct taxes, such as an income tax, that Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution says, "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken."

[Valin]

But back to the proposed cellphone ban. NTSB Chairwoman Hersman said: "It's going to be very unpopular with some people. We're not here to win a popularity contest. We're here to do the right thing."

 

C.S. Lewis warned us about people like Hersman, saying: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

 

"The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doXDlvBXRLA

Prof. William R. Cook describes Tocquevilles experiences as described in Democracy in America. The most likely way for America to fall into despotism is to curtail freedom of speech, and to increase the centralization of government to the point that people no longer have to think and take care of themselves.

[Geee]

But back to the proposed cellphone ban. NTSB Chairwoman Hersman said: "It's going to be very unpopular with some people. We're not here to win a popularity contest. We're here to do the right thing."

 

C.S. Lewis warned us about people like Hersman, saying: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

 

"The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doXDlvBXRLA

Prof. William R. Cook describes Tocquevilles experiences as described in Democracy in America. The most likely way for America to fall into despotism is to curtail freedom of speech, and to increase the centralization of government to the point that people no longer have to think and take care of themselves.

 

 

I have that book and have not read it in a long long time. I don't think I will. It would depress me too much

[Valin]

But back to the proposed cellphone ban. NTSB Chairwoman Hersman said: "It's going to be very unpopular with some people. We're not here to win a popularity contest. We're here to do the right thing."

 

C.S. Lewis warned us about people like Hersman, saying: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

 

"The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doXDlvBXRLA

Prof. William R. Cook describes Tocquevilles experiences as described in Democracy in America. The most likely way for America to fall into despotism is to curtail freedom of speech, and to increase the centralization of government to the point that people no longer have to think and take care of themselves.

 

 

I have that book and have not read it in a long long time. I don't think I will. It would depress me too much

 

 

I am a big fan of Dr. Cook. 1st ran across him from watching his Machiavelli in Context

 

(Snip)

Meet an Extraordinary Student of History

 

In the 24 lectures that make up Machiavelli in Context, Professor Cook offers the opportunity to meet an extraordinarily thoughtful and sincere student of history and its lessons, and to learn that there is far more to him than can be gleaned from any reading of The Prince, no matter how thorough.

 

Although The Prince is the work by which most of us think we know Machiavelli, and although some have indeed called it the first and most important book of political science ever written, it was not, according to Professor Cook, either Machiavelli's most important work or the one most representative of his beliefs. Those distinctions belong, instead, to his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, a longer work started at about the same time and which would, like The Prince, not be published until well after his death.

 

"Everyone who has seriously studied the works of Machiavelli agrees that he ... believed in the superiority of a republican form of government, defined as a mixed constitution with elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.

 

"Once we recover the context of the writing of The Prince, and analyze it along with the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, it will be clear how The Prince can be read as a book designed to guide leaders in the creation—for Machiavelli, restoration—of republican government in Italy.

 

"Ultimately, Machiavelli's goal wasn't much different from ours. It was to live in a free and equal participatory society, because he believed that was the greatest way in which human beings could live and flourish."

 

In fact, says Professor Cook, "Machiavelli's republican thought influenced the development of institutions and values both in Europe and in America."

(Snip)

 

 

Just Wonderful!!