Something Feral

Digging up the flower-beds.


Saturday, November 22, 2008

Once the servant, now the master

The government powerful enough to give you everything is also powerful enough to take it all away:
Argentine stocks fell and the Merval posted the biggest weekly decline among global markets as the state seizure of the nation’s biggest shareholders undermined investor confidence and threatened to spur an equity sell-off.

The Argentine Senate last night approved President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s plan to nationalize about $24 billion in private pensions, a move opposition parties called a cash grab and the government said is a way to protect retirees from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: the government has no business providing "services" to anyone beyond the fundamental reasons for the establishment of the State; namely, the protection of life, liberty and property. It is most definitely not a retirement-fund, and I'm revolted by the idea that some seem to think that this great secular god-being referred to as "The State" should be offering a teat to anyone that happens to wander within our borders.

Like the genii of The Arabian Nights, the State will seemingly honor wishes from its "little masters", but revels in the mayhem that results in the perverse execution of said wishes. The greater the greed in the wish, the more license the executor takes in its fulfillment.

And yet, we continue to act surprised when this happens.

2 comments:

Elusive Wapiti said...

I remember Washington's quote (paraphrased) "Government is like fire. It is a dangerous servant. And it can be a fearful master"

Something Feral said...

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

Yeah, it's one of my favorites, partly for the succinct nature of the quote and the amount of raw truth in it.

It's sad that despite the measures that Washington, Madison and Jefferson enacted to ward against that danger, the spirit of extremely limited government was corrupted shortly after his presidency by Hamilton and his cronies.