Sacrifice

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Bababooyee

Hitler, Stalin, etc. all provided the same public "goods".

I am short on time (be back in 45min or so), so hopefully this quote will make my point clear(er):

"It's a major conceptual breakthrough for anyone, of any political stripe, to realize that advocating central state power for their own purposes is tantamount to advocating that same power in the hands of the enemy."

And I would hardly call Hitler and Stalin simple men, either. Look, if they didn't do some things their population regarded as positive, they wouldn't have been able to hold onto power.

Great quote-- I wonder if the current Republicans are thinking of this quote since the Dems, using the rules the Republicans themselves set up during the past 6 years, are keeping the Republicans out of a lot of decision-making for the first 100 hours of the new Congress. Centralizing power and stifling dissent works great as long as you're the one in power... but the pendalum will usually swing, and a person or a party can find himself or itself hoisted on its own petard.

What the hell is a petard, by the way?