Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Saturday, March 22. 2014

Political Quote du Jour


From Milton Friedman is on the relation between citizens and government that is worthy of the ideals of a free society.


One snippet from the linked quote:



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 freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant.


Posted by The Barrister at 12:15 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

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QUOTE:
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 freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?

I'm not sure I understand what he means by doing something "through government to help discharge our individual responsibilities...". That sounds a bit like how welfare programs are rationalized: "We are supposed to help our fellow man so we're going to do that through government programs". This doesn't seem like a Friedmanian idea to me, but maybe I've misunderstood something (the idea or Friedman)...
#1 mudbug on 2014-03-23 13:28 (Reply)

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