The Ponderosa: Buzzcut's Rules of Life, #52

Death before Dhimmitude

Energy Independence

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Friday, August 20, 2004

Buzzcut's Rules of Life, #52

Don't waste brain space memorizing stuff you can look up in 30 seconds (ie, state capitals, the Periodic Table, default properties of Windows controls).

The Ponderosa

Friday, August 20, 2004

Buzzcut's Rules of Life, #52

Available from The Virginia City Trading Post . . .

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