Monstrous graph from the American Enterprise Institute over at our compatriots at GraniteGrok. Monstrous.
But Bertrand Russell, of all people, explains it:
I would like to thank one of my most important mentors for first indicating this passage to me, the late Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. It was a great, great privilege for me to correspond several times with him. He gave me a number in the States when he made his annual foray here. I called it mid-morning. He had written he was in Chicago. But the number was for San Francisco! He mildly rebuked me, but later sent me a nice post card of one of his own paintings of a parrot/chameleon amalgamation. Hideous. But that's where the man clearly saw where we were heading unless we kept true to our principles in the Founding: liberty, not equality. Where's our Equality Bell?
The fault, dear sirs, is in our un-American system of democracy. I have vowed not to shed a drop of my blood for it. A republic, yes. Certainly, yes. That's what we're supposed to be, after all. That's what Dr. Franklin said to the lady.
Dr. Leddihn said democracy was an importation from the French Revolution, a real topsy-turvy affair, unlike our own much more modest War for Independence. Our principles in the Declaration are eternal, but we didn't change the calendar, destroy the churches, or engage in a genocidal precursor of the horrors of the Twentieth Century.
Leddihn and Marx both share--coming from opposite poles, though the former was adamant to avoid the confusion that extremes can meet--in their outlook of the extreme importance of the French Revolution. For Leddihn it was a hideous developent; Marx embraced it.
The teaching of the French Revolution is hideously sanitized by most American textbooks and educators. There was a notable revisionist effort by Simon Schama about twenty years ago, with his book Citizens.
P.S. And, Will, it's because the doctors and lawyers read newspapers like the New York Times that espouse egalitarianism. Since they have no pride in blood (heritage) and often lack optimism for the future, which means they have few if any children, they are susceptible to take on surrogate religious movements. They are taught to feel guilty for being rich and seek redress by voting for the Left, which Leddihn always capitalized.
In short, without America following its motto in the "Star-spangled Banner," (last stanza) [Why is it the best stuff in songs like this are at the end?] we're doomed. We probably are, which is why I preordered and read John Derbyshire's new book with pessimistic delight.
But Bertrand Russell, of all people, explains it:
The Conquest of Happiness, p. 68....when great changes occur the theories which justify them are always a camouflage for passion. And the passion that has given driving force to democratic theories is undoubtedly the passion of envy.
I would like to thank one of my most important mentors for first indicating this passage to me, the late Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. It was a great, great privilege for me to correspond several times with him. He gave me a number in the States when he made his annual foray here. I called it mid-morning. He had written he was in Chicago. But the number was for San Francisco! He mildly rebuked me, but later sent me a nice post card of one of his own paintings of a parrot/chameleon amalgamation. Hideous. But that's where the man clearly saw where we were heading unless we kept true to our principles in the Founding: liberty, not equality. Where's our Equality Bell?
The fault, dear sirs, is in our un-American system of democracy. I have vowed not to shed a drop of my blood for it. A republic, yes. Certainly, yes. That's what we're supposed to be, after all. That's what Dr. Franklin said to the lady.
Dr. Leddihn said democracy was an importation from the French Revolution, a real topsy-turvy affair, unlike our own much more modest War for Independence. Our principles in the Declaration are eternal, but we didn't change the calendar, destroy the churches, or engage in a genocidal precursor of the horrors of the Twentieth Century.
Leddihn and Marx both share--coming from opposite poles, though the former was adamant to avoid the confusion that extremes can meet--in their outlook of the extreme importance of the French Revolution. For Leddihn it was a hideous developent; Marx embraced it.
The teaching of the French Revolution is hideously sanitized by most American textbooks and educators. There was a notable revisionist effort by Simon Schama about twenty years ago, with his book Citizens.
P.S. And, Will, it's because the doctors and lawyers read newspapers like the New York Times that espouse egalitarianism. Since they have no pride in blood (heritage) and often lack optimism for the future, which means they have few if any children, they are susceptible to take on surrogate religious movements. They are taught to feel guilty for being rich and seek redress by voting for the Left, which Leddihn always capitalized.
In short, without America following its motto in the "Star-spangled Banner," (last stanza) [Why is it the best stuff in songs like this are at the end?] we're doomed. We probably are, which is why I preordered and read John Derbyshire's new book with pessimistic delight.
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