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Legal Plunder and the Common Good

Interesting quotes contrasting the socialistic economic philosophy of Hilliary Clinton with that of other notables.

"Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." - Sen. Hilliary Clinton, June 28, 2004.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. -Winston Churchill

It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately. -Thomas Jefferson

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. -Abraham Lincoln

A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.- A recommendation by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto

Men do not despise a thief if he steals To satisfy himself when he is hungry; But when he is found, he must repay sevenfold; He must give all the substance of his house. Proverbs 6:30-31

You shall not steal. Exodus 20:15

You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. Leviticus 19:13a

Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute socialism.

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. - Frederic Bastiat

Posted by tim at June 29, 2004 10:59 PM

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