It has been observed that this phenomenon aligns well with the Pareto Principle (a.k.a. the 80/20 rule).
Some 80% of people are decent folk who just want to be left alone to live their lives, make a living and raise their families. They are not that interested in using the State to bend others to their will.
It has been observed that this phenomenon aligns well with the Pareto Principle (a.k.a. the 80/20 rule).
Some 80% of people are decent folk who just want to be left alone to live their lives, make a living and raise their families. They are not that interested in using the State to bend others to their will.
20%, however, are on the fence and could go either way depending on circumstances. If the prevailing ethos is "live and let live", then perhaps 80% of this lot will largely adhere to it.
If not, then you get what your are seeing in Canada and the U.S. now.
The truly problematic people are the 20% of the of the 20%, or some 4% of the population.
These are the sociopaths. A high percentage of these people infest government, and the more powerful the government gets, the worse they get. These are our "leaders" whose mission in life is to live off of others and control them.
In the U.S., the percentage of people who "work" for the government ranges from between 14% to 20% of the population, and I don't think this is a coincidence.
It is a permanent constituency for authoritarianism.
"The sheer number of government employees and welfare recipients effectively transforms the purpose of government from maintaining order to confiscating as much as possible from vulnerable taxpayers."
There's a solution to this: Voting is open to all net contributors. If you have a government job; if you live on welfare; if you work for a company that gets more in government contracts than it pays in taxes -- you can't vote. If you don't like it, find another job.
That would keep the parasites from voting their hands into the cookie jar. Otherwise, the system lacks a corrective feedback signal, and eventually goes open-loop and fails... (yes, I'm an engineer)
Not a bad idea, but the "disenfranchised" would raise holy hell about their "voting rights" being violated and every leftist in the land would go berserk.
Well, perhaps *more* berserk is more accurate.
Plus, it has been quite awhile since the number of people sucking on the taxpayer teat exceeds those producing the milk.
I'm afraid our fate is now all but inevitable. The only question is when.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years."
~ Attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler and Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy is inherently flawed for other reasons, the wolves and the lamb voting on who is for dinner being an excellent illustration. As for people screaming about disenfranchisement and going berserk, so what? Let them scream.
The USA was, as Ben Franklin said, "a Republic, if you can keep it." Every time I hear a lefty talking about 'our democracy,' I shudder. As to the inevitability, the Founders generally thought that the government would last only 40 years or so, at which time a new constitutional convention would form another, likely quite different, government. So the fact that the Constitution has survived for 235 years in more-or-less its original form is a testament to its durability.
If the Fedgov 'stuck to its knitting' as in 'strictly followed the Enumerated Powers,' few people would care who was in charge. Overreach in the interpretation of the Interstate Commerce and General Welfare clauses, along with liberal interpretations by the courts, has given the government far too much power. (It started with Marbury v. Madison, merely 16 years after the Constitution was written.) That is the true problem here, but fixing it will take more than a discussion on this esteemed forum.
n.b.: Jefferson said the following in a letter to Chief Justice Marshall regarding Marbury:
“You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. … Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.”
It has been observed that this phenomenon aligns well with the Pareto Principle (a.k.a. the 80/20 rule).
Some 80% of people are decent folk who just want to be left alone to live their lives, make a living and raise their families. They are not that interested in using the State to bend others to their will.
20%, however, are on the fence and could go either way depending on circumstances. If the prevailing ethos is "live and let live", then perhaps 80% of this lot will largely adhere to it.
If not, then you get what your are seeing in Canada and the U.S. now.
The truly problematic people are the 20% of the of the 20%, or some 4% of the population.
These are the sociopaths. A high percentage of these people infest government, and the more powerful the government gets, the worse they get. These are our "leaders" whose mission in life is to live off of others and control them.
In the U.S., the percentage of people who "work" for the government ranges from between 14% to 20% of the population, and I don't think this is a coincidence.
It is a permanent constituency for authoritarianism.
"The sheer number of government employees and welfare recipients effectively transforms the purpose of government from maintaining order to confiscating as much as possible from vulnerable taxpayers."
~ James Bovard
There's a solution to this: Voting is open to all net contributors. If you have a government job; if you live on welfare; if you work for a company that gets more in government contracts than it pays in taxes -- you can't vote. If you don't like it, find another job.
That would keep the parasites from voting their hands into the cookie jar. Otherwise, the system lacks a corrective feedback signal, and eventually goes open-loop and fails... (yes, I'm an engineer)
https://jimmysmith.org/government-constitution/voting-themselves-money/
Not a bad idea, but the "disenfranchised" would raise holy hell about their "voting rights" being violated and every leftist in the land would go berserk.
Well, perhaps *more* berserk is more accurate.
Plus, it has been quite awhile since the number of people sucking on the taxpayer teat exceeds those producing the milk.
I'm afraid our fate is now all but inevitable. The only question is when.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years."
~ Attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler and Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy is inherently flawed for other reasons, the wolves and the lamb voting on who is for dinner being an excellent illustration. As for people screaming about disenfranchisement and going berserk, so what? Let them scream.
The USA was, as Ben Franklin said, "a Republic, if you can keep it." Every time I hear a lefty talking about 'our democracy,' I shudder. As to the inevitability, the Founders generally thought that the government would last only 40 years or so, at which time a new constitutional convention would form another, likely quite different, government. So the fact that the Constitution has survived for 235 years in more-or-less its original form is a testament to its durability.
If the Fedgov 'stuck to its knitting' as in 'strictly followed the Enumerated Powers,' few people would care who was in charge. Overreach in the interpretation of the Interstate Commerce and General Welfare clauses, along with liberal interpretations by the courts, has given the government far too much power. (It started with Marbury v. Madison, merely 16 years after the Constitution was written.) That is the true problem here, but fixing it will take more than a discussion on this esteemed forum.
n.b.: Jefferson said the following in a letter to Chief Justice Marshall regarding Marbury:
“You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. … Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.”