Friday, October 19, 2007
How the State Leads People to Their Own Destruction
http://www.mises.org/story/2749
The Song That Is Irresistible: How the State Leads People to Their Own Destruction
By Robert Higgs
Posted on 10/16/2007
Margaret Atwood's poem "Siren Song" begins:
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls.
Our rulers know how to sing that song, and they sing it day and night. The beached skulls are those of our fathers and our sons, our friends and our neighbors, for whom the song proved not only irresistible, but fatal.
The state is the most destructive institution human beings have ever devised — a fire that, at best, can be controlled for only a short time before it o'erleaps its improvised confinements and spreads its flames far and wide.
The Song That Is Irresistible: How the State Leads People to Their Own Destruction
By Robert Higgs
Posted on 10/16/2007
Margaret Atwood's poem "Siren Song" begins:
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls.
Our rulers know how to sing that song, and they sing it day and night. The beached skulls are those of our fathers and our sons, our friends and our neighbors, for whom the song proved not only irresistible, but fatal.
The state is the most destructive institution human beings have ever devised — a fire that, at best, can be controlled for only a short time before it o'erleaps its improvised confinements and spreads its flames far and wide.
# posted by OLD YELLER @ 5:54 AM 
