“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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I had intended to indulge myself today with a bit of a Sunday Sermon about the increasing intrusiveness of government.
But then I found a quote from a Frenchman named Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and I decided to let him use my pulpit on this occasion.
He didn’t know about the “En ess a” snoopers who have been listening to our phone calls, reading our emails, and spying on the leaders of nations that are supposed to be friends and allies of the United States, because he was speaking about what it means to be governed more than two hundred years ago.
Nevertheless, his words ring eerily true.
Nothing, it seems, has changed.
In fact today’s technology has made things far worse.
This is what he had to say all those years ago….
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To be governed is to be
watched over,
inspected,
spied on,
directed,
legislated at,
regulated,
docketed,
indoctrinated,
preached at,
controlled,
assessed,
weighed,
censored,
(and) ordered about,
by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue.
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To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction,
noted,
registered,
enrolled,
taxed,
stamped,
measured,
numbered,
assessed,
licensed,
authorized,
admonished,
forbidden,
reformed,
corrected,
(and) punished.
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It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be
placed under contribution,
trained,
ransomed,
exploited,
monopolized,
extorted,
squeezed,
mystified,
(and) robbed;
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Then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be
repressed,
fined,
despised,
harassed,
tracked,
abused,
clubbed,
disarmed,
choked,
imprisoned,
judged,
condemned,
shot,
deported,
sacrificed,
sold,
betrayed;
and, to crown all,
mocked,
ridiculed,
outraged,
(and) dishonoured.
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That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.
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The man knew what he was talking about.
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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, (1809 – 1865) was a French politician, the founder of Mutualist philosophy, an economist and a libertarian socialist. He was the first person to declare himself an anarchist and is among its most influential theorists. He is considered by many to be the “father of anarchism”. He became a member of the French Parliament after the revolution of 1848, whereupon and thereafter he referred to himself as a federalist.
(Bio source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon )
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