Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!ucbopal.CC!mwm From: mwm@UCBOPAL.CC (Mike Meyer, I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Changing ideas Message-ID: <8509171814.AA23399@ucbopal.Berkeley.Edu> Date: Tue, 17-Sep-85 14:14:53 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbopal.8509171814.AA23399 Posted: Tue Sep 17 14:14:53 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 05:14:40 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 37 In article <269@pedsgd.UUCP> pedsgd!bob writes: >In article <3632@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall) writes: >>A study of intellectual history will show you that it was around >>1900 that socialist ideas began having their greatest impact >>on leading political thinkers, though it took time for them to >>"trickle down" to the mass of second-hand idea dealers such as >>politicians and the press. > >This reply begs the question, which is >How is it that the people of Scandinavia (and the rest of Western Europe, and >the US ) allowed themselves to be decieved into accepting democratic socialism >when it was clearly contrary to their best interests? The answer to this question can be found in a 130 year old quote from Thomas Macaulay (British historian, circa 1857): The day will come when (in the United States) a multitude of people will choose the legislature. Is it possible to doubt what sort of a legislature will be chosen? On the one side is a statesman preaching patience, respect for rights, strict observance of public faith. On the other is a demagogue ranting about the tyranny of capitalism and usurers asking why anybody should be permitted to drink champagne and to ride in a carriage while thousands of honest people are in want of necessaries. Which of the candidates is likely to be preferred by a workman? . . . When Society has entered on this downward progress, either civilization or liberty must perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire in the fifth; with this difference, that the Huns and vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from without, and that your Huns and vandals will have been engendered within your country, by your own institutions.