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July 30, 2010
David Hazony : Reason and logic offer the weakest motivation for being good; A reconsideration of the true root of evil on this earth
Caroline B. Glick: See no evil
July 29, 2010
Jori Finkel: Largest restitution claims ever filed in U.S. courts by a single family against another nation ($100 million)
The Kosher Gourmet by Noelle Carter: Light, bright-flavored passion fruit mousse
July 28, 2010
John Keilman: For today's youths, there may be a downside to high self-esteem
Glenn Garvin: Is life wasted on the living?
July 27, 2010
Thomas H. Maugh II: Israeli scientists devise way for disabled to control computers, wheelchairs by sniffing
Caroline B. Glick: The new, improved Obama
July 26, 2010
Mort Zuckerman: Prerequisites for a two-state solution
Lisa M. Krieger: Professor fired over comments on homosexuality gets $100,000
July 23, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Feeling Totally Alive
Caroline B. Glick: Change we must believe in
July 22, 2010
John Rosemond: Mothers who fall short --- by design
The Kosher Gourmet by Carol Mighton Haddix: The summer slump: Lazy cook's version of cobbler is simple, seasonal and sumptuous
July 21, 2010
David L. Ulin: The dance of chaos and fate
July 20, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Other Butterfly Effect
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Kagan's Shariah problem
July 19, 2010
Jeff Jacoby: Look who's defending states' rights
Kathleen Parker: Americans must not be cowed by Muslim objections to cartoons
David Hazony: Answering WWMD --- What Would Moses Do?
Caroline B. Glick: A war on whose terms?
July 15, 2010
John Rosemond: To tell a child 'You can be anything you want to be' is irresponsible
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : Ice pops for grown-ups
July 14, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson : In Judaism, Second Amendment states' rights would never be up for debate
Patrick Goldstein : Dimmed star
July 13, 2010
Julian E. Barnes : U.S. military turns to TV for surveillance technology
Libby Lazewnik: Lazy Days (SHORT STORY)
July 12, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Disloyalty or opportunity?
Gene Weingarten: Rhymin' sly man: If Shakespeare had worked the Catskills …

Jewish World Review March 2, 2010 / 16 Adar 5770

Who Poses the Greater Threat?

By Walter Williams


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Bill Gates is the world's richest person, but what kind of power does he have over you? Can he force your kid to go to a school you do not want him to attend? Can he deny you the right to braid hair in your home for a living? It turns out that a local politician, who might deny us the right to earn a living and dictates which school our kid attends, has far greater power over our lives than any rich person. Rich people can gain power over us, but to do so, they must get permission from our elected representatives at the federal, state or local levels. For example, I might wish to purchase sugar from a Caribbean producer, but America's sugar lobby pays congressmen hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to impose sugar import tariffs and quotas, forcing me and every other American to purchase their more expensive sugar.


Politicians love pitting us against the rich. All by themselves, the rich have absolutely no power over us. To rip us off, they need the might of Congress to rig the economic game. It's a slick political sleight-of-hand where politicians and their allies amongst the intellectuals, talking heads and the news media get us caught up in the politics of envy as part of their agenda for greater control over our lives.


The sugar lobby is just one example among thousands. Just ask yourself: Who were the major recipients of the billions of taxpayer bailout dollars, the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)? The top recipients of TARP handouts included companies such as Citibank, AIG, Goldman Sachs and General Motors. Their top management are paid tens of millions dollars to run companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy, were it not for billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Politicians preach the politics of envy whilst reaching into the ordinary man's pockets, through the IRS, and handing it over to their favorite rich people and others who make large contributions to their election efforts.

Letter from JWR publisher


The bottom line is that it is politicians first and their supporters amongst intellectuals who pose the greatest threat to liberty. Dr. Thomas Sowell amply demonstrates this in his brand-new book, "Intellectuals and Society," in which he points out that: "Scarcely a mass-murdering dictator of the twentieth century was without his intellectual supporters, not simply in his own country, but also in foreign democracies . . . Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler all had their admirers, defenders and apologists among the intelligentsia in Western democratic nations, despite the fact that these dictators each ended up killing people of their own country on a scale unprecedented even by despotic regimes that preceded them."


While American politicians and intellectuals have not reached the depths of tyrants such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, they share a common vision. Tyrants denounce free markets and voluntary exchange. They are the chief supporters of reduced private property rights, reduced rights to profits, and they are anti-competition and pro-monopoly. They are pro-control and coercion, by the state. These Americans who run Washington, and their intellectual supporters, believe they have superior wisdom and greater intelligence than the masses. They believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Like any other tyrant, they have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others. A tyrant's primary agenda calls for the elimination or attenuation of the market. Why? Markets imply voluntary exchange and tyrants do trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. Therefore, they seek to replace the market with economic planning and regulation, which is little more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite.


We Americans have forgotten founder Thomas Paine's warning that "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

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