Soft Tyranny

This has become one of my favorite quotes:

“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. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” ~ C.S. Lewis

I honestly question whether we're wise enough to select our own leaders -- or our own 'representatives', which is more accurate a definition of those sworn to serve us in Washington. In a perfect world.

The term 'slippery slope' gets misused and overused, but when properly used it's quite accurate... we do want a federal government acting within its Constitutional bounds, but once those restraints are slipped, away we go, like a runaway freight train. Sometimes we manage to rein them in, only to have them escape without our knowledge. What do I mean? Remember Clinton and the Republican Congress ending 'welfare as we know it'? Did you know that it's back? The restrictions imposed during the Clinton years have been removed by this president, in the 'stimulus' bill... that's why so many more people are on government assistance and food stamps, just as he wants them to be. He undid welfare reform, right under our noses, and no one had any idea. Maybe we'll know what's in that bill when we read it, eh?

One last thing: In my own not-so-humble opinion, utopianism is not a soft tyranny, but a hard one. It's one thing to take some tax money from the producers, and provide a temporary safety net to the most needy in our society. But it's quite another to secure the votes of some people by giving them the fruits of the labors of others, in perpetuity.