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February 13, 2010
Applying the Gnosis
Government is not essentially evil;but given the fallen nature of man, you have to assume that if you give great power it will be used, and given enough power it will attract evil men. It is not a coincidence that the wicked brother often survives to become king -- one of the reasons for not having kings. Government is not villainy. It is, in the words of Franklin, "like fire a dangerous servant and a fearful master"; but he invented the Franklin Stove to make more efficient use of fire, and would no more have given up government than he would fire. That ancients always believed that good government was the gift of the gods, and the Framers understood that good government requires hard work and resistance to the temptation to try to accomplish too much. The knowledge of the world does not lead to perfection and attempts to establish perfection through knowledge -- through acquiring the gnosis and applying it -- have always been the door to disaster and worse.
Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free. You cannot have both freedom and equality imposed by law. You can have charity or you can have entitlements, but the more you have of the latter the less you will have of the former -- and the less you will have of freedom. This isn't really controversial; it's inherent in the terms. You are free to equalize yourself with the poor, but there is neither freedom nor charity in forcing that equalization, and we all know it. Moreover, equalization is done by a ruling class forcing others to share; little of their equalizations affects those who enact them. Not in their fundamentals." -- Jerry Pournelle
Posted by Vanderleun at February 13, 2010 9:14 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.