Churchill Saw It Coming
Posted By Julia Shaw On December 3, 2010 @ 4:00 pm The Heritage Foundation EXCERPT:
One hundred and thirty six years ago this week, Winston Churchillarguably the leading statesman of the twentieth centurywas born. The son of a British father and an American mother, Churchill is often remembered for his formidable oratory skills and his love of fine cigars. Yet Churchill was also a great friend to America whose warnings about the empty promises of the nascent welfare state have come to fruition.
A great admirer of America, Churchill especially praised our founding document: The Declaration is not only an American document. It follows on the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights as the third great title deed on which the liberties of the English-speaking peoples are founded. Though Britain and America were two separate nations with different forms of governments, they were united in principle: I believe that our differences are more apparent than real, and are the result of geographical and other physical conditions rather than any true division of principle. As Justin Lyons explains in Winston Churchills Constitutionalism: A Critique of Socialism in America [1], Churchills ideas about individual liberty, constitutionalism, and limited government stemmed from his explicit agreement with the crucial statements of these principles by the American Founders.
When Churchill saw Americas principles of liberty, constitutionalism, and limited government, threatened with the rise of the welfare state, he admonished America to resist this soft despotism. In Roosevelt from Afar, Churchill admits that the American economy was suffering when FDR took office, but FDR used this crisis as an opportunity to centralize his political authority rather than to bolster the free market through decentralized alternatives. Churchill commends Roosevelts desire to improve the economic well-being for poorer Americans, but he critiques Roosevelts policies toward trade unionism and attacks on wealthy Americans as harmful to the free enterprise system. Drawing on Britains experience with trade unions, Churchill understood that unions can cripple an economy: when one sees an attempt made within the space of a few months to lift American trade unionism by great heaves and bounds [to equal that of Great Britain], one worries that result could be a general crippling of that enterprise and flexibility upon which not only the wealth, but the happiness of modern communities depends. Similarly, redistribution of wealth through penalties on the rich harms the economy: far from depriving ordinary people of their earnings, [the millionaire] launches enterprise and carries it through, raises values, and he expands that credit without which on a vast scale no fuller economic life can be opened to the millions. To hunt wealth is not to capture commonwealth. Ultimately, attacks on the wealthy only serve as a distraction from other economic issues.
END EXCERPT
Ultimately, attacks on the wealthy only serve as a distraction from other economic issues. Like 9.8% unemployment???
Posted By Julia Shaw On December 3, 2010 @ 4:00 pm The Heritage Foundation EXCERPT:
One hundred and thirty six years ago this week, Winston Churchillarguably the leading statesman of the twentieth centurywas born. The son of a British father and an American mother, Churchill is often remembered for his formidable oratory skills and his love of fine cigars. Yet Churchill was also a great friend to America whose warnings about the empty promises of the nascent welfare state have come to fruition.
A great admirer of America, Churchill especially praised our founding document: The Declaration is not only an American document. It follows on the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights as the third great title deed on which the liberties of the English-speaking peoples are founded. Though Britain and America were two separate nations with different forms of governments, they were united in principle: I believe that our differences are more apparent than real, and are the result of geographical and other physical conditions rather than any true division of principle. As Justin Lyons explains in Winston Churchills Constitutionalism: A Critique of Socialism in America [1], Churchills ideas about individual liberty, constitutionalism, and limited government stemmed from his explicit agreement with the crucial statements of these principles by the American Founders.
When Churchill saw Americas principles of liberty, constitutionalism, and limited government, threatened with the rise of the welfare state, he admonished America to resist this soft despotism. In Roosevelt from Afar, Churchill admits that the American economy was suffering when FDR took office, but FDR used this crisis as an opportunity to centralize his political authority rather than to bolster the free market through decentralized alternatives. Churchill commends Roosevelts desire to improve the economic well-being for poorer Americans, but he critiques Roosevelts policies toward trade unionism and attacks on wealthy Americans as harmful to the free enterprise system. Drawing on Britains experience with trade unions, Churchill understood that unions can cripple an economy: when one sees an attempt made within the space of a few months to lift American trade unionism by great heaves and bounds [to equal that of Great Britain], one worries that result could be a general crippling of that enterprise and flexibility upon which not only the wealth, but the happiness of modern communities depends. Similarly, redistribution of wealth through penalties on the rich harms the economy: far from depriving ordinary people of their earnings, [the millionaire] launches enterprise and carries it through, raises values, and he expands that credit without which on a vast scale no fuller economic life can be opened to the millions. To hunt wealth is not to capture commonwealth. Ultimately, attacks on the wealthy only serve as a distraction from other economic issues.
END EXCERPT
Ultimately, attacks on the wealthy only serve as a distraction from other economic issues. Like 9.8% unemployment???
