Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Tik Tok and other social media dominate the way we speak to one another about everything under the sun. We share our views, bare our souls, and throw civility into the cesspool. It’s all so mindlessly sad!
Beliefs that were always sacrosanct are now “woke.” The very foundations of what our government “once was” is now “never were.”
We pass on news, fake and real. We take stands about issues that we know little or nothing about. We adopt hearsay, innuendo, and allegations as absolutes. We fire before we aim. We act before we think. In a word, we are becoming gullible lemmings gone amok!
Before this qualifies as a modern-day Jeremiad, and we are accused of speaking in tongues, it seems time to look back at what some well-known commentators on the “human condition, “of government had to say through thoughtful written and spoken words.
But, first let me share a part of a recent George Will column about the “new oligarchy of speech” referred to by Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor writing “What Cheap Speech Has Done” in the UC-Davis Law Review.
Both Will and Volokh agree that the “old expensive speech system may have seemed undemocratic, but media owners were disciplined by market forces, and they valued their reputation. The mainstream media had its defects, but they didn’t offer much of a voice to people obsessed with private grievances, to outright kooks, or to the overly credulous spreaders of conspiracy theories.”
You may not agree with what they said, but in our mind, their thoughts are well worth sharing, as are the following words, some humorous, others not so much, of those born in pre-Internet times:
“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat
myself.” — Mark Twain
“A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” — George Bernard Shaw.
“A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.” — G. Gordon Liddy
“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” — James Bovard
“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
— P.J. O’Rourke
“Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense
of everybody else.” — Frederic Bastiat
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it
moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
— Ronald Reagan
“I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” — Will Rogers
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free!”
— P. J. O’Rourke
“In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one
party of the citizens to give to the other.” — Voltaire (1764)
“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest
in you!” — Pericles (430 B.C.)
“The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy
appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. “– Ronald Reagan
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” — Winston Churchill
“What this country needs are more unemployed politicians “– Edward Langley
“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything
you have.” — Thomas Jefferson
And, here are a few anonymous thoughts:
You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it
And, perhaps, the most foreboding of all:
When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work, because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation!
Berwyn Village event and a few late September trivia tidbits:
The long-awaited unveiling of a new mural in the Village of Berwyn will be held Sunday, Sept. 26 from 1 to 4 p.m. The festive community event is being held in the parking lot between the mural and Clay’s Bakery at the corner of Lancaster and Waterloo Aves. Painted by Carrie Kingsbury and commissioned by Stacey Ballard, president of Eadeh Enterprises, the mural depicts the American Flag amid a host of local Berwynites. (We’ll identify them in the next Banter.)
On September 27, 1789, the U.S. Postal Service was founded. On that same day in 1854, the passenger steamship SS Arctic sank in the Atlantic off Newfoundland. Only 86 of 400 passengers survived. On September 28, 1919, the NY Giants defeated the Phillies in the fastest baseball game ever in the major leagues. It was only 51 minutes long. On September 30, 1982, the TV sitcom “Cheers” premiered.
Finally, nobody asked, but knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not including it in a fruit salad.
The Last Word: Good day, good luck, and good news tomorrow.
