Quotes

"Fascism and communism both promise "social welfare," "social justice," and "fairness" to justify authoritarian means and extensive arbitrary and discretionary governmental powers." - F. A. Hayek"

"Life is a Bungling process and in no way educational." in James M. Cain

Jean Giraudoux who first said, “Only the mediocre are always at their best.”

If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. Sir Winston Churchill

"summum ius summa iniuria" ("More laws, more injustice.") Cicero

As Christopher Hitchens once put it, “The essence of tyranny is not iron law; it is capricious law.”

"Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." Ronald Reagan

"Law is where you buy it." Raymond Chandler

"Why did God make so many damn fools and Democrats?" Clarence Day

"If I feel like feeding squirrels to the nuts, this is the place for it." - Cluny Brown

"Oh, pshaw! When yu' can't have what you choose, yu' just choose what you have." Owen Wister "The Virginian"

Oscar Wilde said about the death scene in Little Nell, you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

Thomas More's definition of government as "a conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of a commonwealth.” ~ Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples

“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” ~ Jonathon Swift

Thursday, January 19, 2012

How Jack the Ripper's first victim puts America's literacy level to shame.

Mark Steyn's "After America" is a deeply important book. It makes historical, political, economic and literary connections not seen since James Burke's "Connections" in the 1970's.

Why does Jack the Ripper continue to fascinate? Because it feeds into Victorian myths – Telegraph Blogs
By Last updated: August 31st, 2011

...Yet despite the caricature of pre-statist Victorian society that we are all taught, English society had made tremendous progress since the 1830s in reducing squalor. The East End was poor, but absolute poverty was easing, and this had much to do with both physical and spiritual improvements in people’s lives. And this often had little to do with the state. As Mark Steyn notes in his new book about statism, After America, a letter sent by Jack the Ripper’s first victim Mary Ann Nichols shows a level of literacy that would shame many of today’s university students – and she was born in Holborn, arguably London's worst slum, 25 years before the Education Act.

Crime was relatively low by 1888, which is why such murders were shocking. The English homicide rate by the end of the 19th century had reached under 1/100,000 after decades of improvement, and would continue a decline until the mid-1950s, after which it would rise to its current level of 1.2-1.3/100,000. How was this achieved? Education and material improvement helped, but it’s telling that when Nichols’s body was found, at 4am in the worst district in London, three policemen were found within ten minutes, each walking the beat. ...

-go to the link-


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