Nov 11 2009
A Substitute God
Until more people come to a more realistic, fact-based understanding of the government and the economy, little hope exists of tearing away from their quasi-religious attachment to a government they view with misplaced reverence and unrealistic hopes. Lacking a true religious faith yet craving one, many Americans have turned to the state as a substitute god, endowed with the divine omnipotence required to shower the public with something for nothing in every department – free health care, free retirement security, free protection from hazardous consumer products and workplace accidents, free protection from the Islamic maniacs the U.S. government stirs up with its misadventures in the Muslim world, and so forth. If you take the government to be Santa Claus, you naturally want every day to be Christmas; and the bigger the Santa, the bigger his sack of goodies.
- Bob Higgs via Marginal Revolution
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WONDERFULL POST!!!
I also enjoyed your post on your trip to Spain! Have a good day!
Agreed, great blog posting. Too many times the masses think the government will provide them with everything they need. They have gone so far as to think “it” as a right; whatever “it” is. We are rapidly becoming a “nanny state.”
I have watched “on the street” type news interviews of the general public and many times I am amazed that people have no clue as to where the governemnt gets its money. They must think it grows on trees or falls from the sky.
Once the people receiving “goodies” from the government outnumber the people that pay for all those “goodies” there will no longer be a way to vote out the enabling politicians.
Ignorance can be cured with knowledge, stupidity is a terminal disease.
The idea of a substitute god is right on the mark in my view. It is too easy to just become apathetic and simultaneously expect benefit just for existing. True faith is not quietistic and neither is good citizenship. Both are active and both require exercise in inquiry and practice.