Tom Kunich wrote:
>
> "Alex Rodriguez" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > Some idiot in city government wasn't thinking when they
> > thought having the RNC in NYC was a good idea. I'm sure this is going to
> > end up costing us tax payers a lot of money. NYC is like a police state
> with
> > cops, and cop cadets, all over the place. You can't walk a block without
> > seeing group of cops.
>
> The point is that now the entire world is seeing what American Liberals are.
That they aren't really liberals, but are socialists?
http://www.belmont.edu/lockesmith/essay.html
I'm a liberal, and they are nothing like me.
> And they don't like what they're seeing. Neither does the overwhelming
> majority of voters in this country.
That isn't what the polls say.
> So I suppose it was a really good idea. If we can get the Democratic Party
> back to the sort that John F. Kennedy...
I won't hope for that.
Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, pp 1-3
Introduction
IN A MUCH QUOTED PASSAGE in his inaugural address, President
Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask
what you can do for your country.” It is a striking sign of the
temper of our times that the controversy about this passage cen-
tered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the
statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his gov-
ernment that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society.
The paternalistic “what your country can do for you” implies
that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view
that is at odds with the free man’s belief in his own responsibility
for his own destiny. The organismic, “what you can do for your
country” implies that government is the master or the deity, the
citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country
is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something
over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and
loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a
means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts,
nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served. He
recognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the
goals that the citizens severally serve. He recognizes no national
purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which
the citizens severally strive.
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for
him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather
What can I and my compatriots do through government, to
help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our
several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our free
dom? And he will accompany this question with another: How
can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frank
enstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to pro-
tect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us,
and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the
concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our
freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise
our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is
also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this
power initially be of good will and even though they be not
corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract
and form men of a different stamp.