I have been more than a little discouraged and disgusted with those who purport to be my fellow countrymen. Everywhere you turn it seems that there is another street-corner evangelist preaching the gospel of government control, and they always seem to have a crowd around them.
It is human nature to seek the most gain from minimum effort, and nothing can be more minimum than having someone else do it for you. These are the people who turn to Mommy Government to solve all of their ills.
In 1865 the country climbed out from under a civil war. Freed slaves reveled in new found freedom.
They soon found out, however, that freedom has its cost. Slavery is safe, because someone takes care of you. It may be only a minimum level of care, barely enough for sustenance, but it is provided to you. Food, clothing and shelter, the first three items on the hierarchy of needs, are given free of monetary cost. The only thing you pay for these things is your soul.
Freedom, however, means that you are left to fend for yourself. Being responsible for yourself means that you must provide for your own food, clothing and shelter. No one is waiting to pick you up when you fall, you live or die by your own actions and decisions. You own yourself, body and soul.
Freedom is scary.
This is why so many people opt for any kind of soft slavery rather than hard freedom.
-- Last Refuge of a Scoundrel - This Time the Union Can Keep the Slaves
the tranquility of servitude
better than the animating contest of freedom,
go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you,
and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
--Samuel Adams, 1776
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