Here's another gem of a quote from the exalted lord Benjamin...
"The Public has the Right of Regulating Descents & all other
Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity & the
Uses of it. All the property that is necessary to a man for the conservation of the individual & the propagation of the species, is
his natural right which none can justly deprive him of: But all property
of the Public, who by their laws have created it, and who may
therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the welfare of the
Public shall demand such disposition. He that does not like civil society on these terms, let him retire & live among savages.—He can
have no right to the benefits of society who will not pay his club
towards the support of it"
Gosh, that guy sounds like a commie. He's essentially saying that once you can afford your house, a horse, and enough food to feed your kids, everything else belongs to the public.
Don't get me wrong, i don't actually agree with that. But holy hell, that's a good quote to throw at teabaggers when they claim that our Founders -- our noble, glowing, beneficient, godlike Founders -- were all libertarian Ayn Rand junkies who would shudder and weep at the thought of having corporate and capital gains taxes.
Ben Franklin, more socialist than the socialists!
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7 comments:
If you're trying to say "Franklin was a socialist", here's the thing. When he says "the Public" he means individual citizens, not the government.
And most libertarians also agree that Rand was a nutcase. Hell, she said libertarianism was a greater threat to capitalism then communism.
Wait, you mean that individual citizens have the right to take whatever they want from rich people? I'm not sure if that's what Franklin necessarily had in mind. I'm pretty sure he meant the public = the government.
See, when people talk about the Almighty Founders and how we must follow their vision to the letter, you have to realize that we're living in two different worlds.
Franklin's world was a world of de facto feudalism, in which 80% lived hand-to-mouth, and were lorded over by landowners and merchants. The members of the overclass were tied to their lands, and had a very real stake when it came to ponying up monies for defense and public works.
It's a totally different world than ours, where the fortunes of individuals are almost totally divorced from their neighbors. Globalization is a bitch, but it is a reality. We haven't adjusted to it yet, and looking back to The Founders is pretty silly.
Guns are another example. Back then, guns were tools that people needed to survive; now they are pricey toys. I'm not saying we should ban them, i'm just saying that the reality is totally different.
Ayn Rand was also a cheating wife, a methamphetamine addict, and a parasite who mooched off of her family members in America, and then claimed she made it all on her own.
I think it was more individual citizens have the right to use their property as they see fit, and not have the government just come and collectivize under the name of "Wealth redistribution".
It's also more a warning that "superflous wealth" or the 1% shouldn't hold unchecked power. As we've seen the case with both the Bush and Obama governments.
Ummmm.... read it again.
Okay, maybe you're right. Do you think he'd appreciate our current government's efforts though?
It's impossible to know what he'd think, or what Washington or Jefferson would think. You can't divorce a person or their mind from the specific cultural contexts and experiences of their lives; if all of them were reincarnated in the present day, they might be anything from a libertarian Silicon Valley tech guy or a member of Obama's cabinet.
We can't know. It's like asking -- if you were born as a Mongolian or a Viking in the year 800 AD, would you murder people in other tribes?
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