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Thread: Tocqueville’s Worst Fears

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    Tocqueville’s Worst Fears

    Tocqueville’s Worst Fears is a reactionary criticism of Thomas Piketty's uncritical claim the world is moving inevitably toward greater equality. I'll cite only Tocqueville’s worst fears.

    In the introduction to Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville asserted that the history of the world, or at least of the West, exhibited a providential, inevitable movement towards equality. As the scholar Marvin Zetterbaum argued in his book Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy, Tocqueville’s claim was partly rhetorical: by persuading democracy’s conservative opponents in France to accept its inevitability, he hoped to induce them to join in guiding it in a salutary direction, harmonious with human liberty and dignity. By contrast, in the last part of Volume Two of his book, Tocqueville expressed the fear that the principle of equality, if carried to an illiberal extreme, would culminate in a “tutelary” despotism, in which government, even if elective, would deprive individuals of the freedom to act, aiming to regulate all their actions for the sake of what it “knew” was their good.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    This is why the Founding Fathers did not want a Democracy because they knew that was just mob rule and could be manipulated to give up freedom in order to gain security.

    Normally, I was not pessimistic about our future but unless there is a major change in our politics from all sides we are headed for the destruction of the Founder's dream.
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    Quote Originally Posted by OLD GUY IN FLORIDA View Post
    This is why the Founding Fathers did not want a Democracy because they knew that was just mob rule and could be manipulated to give up freedom in order to gain security.

    Normally, I was not pessimistic about our future but unless there is a major change in our politics from all sides we are headed for the destruction of the Founder's dream.
    Yep. That is the exact situation we are in.
    “The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.”
    H.L. Mencken

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    Forced equality/equity (especially in outcome) will never be possible, but we can have a great deal of totalitarian suffering and injustice trying to get there......


    My Revenge will be Success! - Donald J Trump

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    Equality demands sameness and that undermines the liberty to be different.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Equality demands sameness and that undermines the liberty to be different.
    Indeed. Equality of outcome requires effort by individuals. Not everyone has the same will to work hard, or at all. And that's okay. Just don't expect equal outcomes. As long as people have roughly equal opportunity under the law, that's the best society can do. Anything else results in a less optimal, more unequal result.
    “The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.”
    H.L. Mencken

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    Equality is the great desire to reach a state of hopelessness where you can never improve and are never punished for doing less.


    So no on ever does anything. Even growing your own food makes it necessary to share it with everyone else. Because you didn't build that.
    Let's go Brandon !!!

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    Quote Originally Posted by carolina73 View Post
    Equality is the great desire to reach a state of hopelessness where you can never improve and are never punished for doing less.


    So no on ever does anything. Even growing your own food makes it necessary to share it with everyone else. Because you didn't build that.

    Sounds like communism.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Sounds like communism.
    If Communism could ever really exist. Even Russia realized that they had to have layers of citizens to reward producers. And the leaders lived like royalty.
    Let's go Brandon !!!

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    Quote Originally Posted by carolina73 View Post
    If Communism could ever really exist. Even Russia realized that they had to have layers of citizens to reward producers. And the leaders lived like royalty.
    Russia and China have some of the worst income inequality on the planet.
    “The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.”
    H.L. Mencken

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