As I have noted on my Facebook page and in the pages of this website, I consider myself, by and large, to be a Classical Liberal (PDF). Others of this class of political thought are the Founding Fathers, Thomas Sowell and Frederic Bastiat (adding grave accents are left as an exercise to the reader).
The Sanity Inspector over at Protein Wisdom has a classic quote highlighted from Frederic today that is worthy of passing on:
The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.
I see also from the Wikipedia entry for Bastiat that the Mises Organization has two PDFs of his collected works, Volume 1 and Volume 2. I have added these to my reading list.
There are, I’m sure, some that would call these “community organizers” something not-so-nice — like Greedy Bastards. But these sort of people cannot recognize that their progressive, enlightened betters are arranging the lives of the unwashed masses for their own good. They are, simply put…