>>>You may still be found guilty by association. Only these guys are too smart - they first buy a law which makes their particular form of theft legal. And the court of history, they don't care about that. Apres mois, le deluge.
>>
>>And yet you don't see appropriation by the state of private wealth to be making a particular form of theft legal ? <s>
>
>If I'm not seriously mistaken, one of the milestones of democracy is that a republic is a res publica, a public thing, hence the state shouldn't be allowed to appropriate anything inappropriate, i.e. what is not agreed upon. Giving to the state is a legalized pooling of means for a common cause.
>
>Now if someone buys a law by which your private wealth is somehow contributing more than theirs, well, fix the system to do it in a way which will satisfy the most and still deliver the goods.
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>>The objection is to those who make themselves feel righteous by "doing good "spending other people's money. <g>
>
>Righteous? Dang, they should feel responsible, and be hung by their spheres if they swindle it out.

I don't think the problem is corruption on the part of the elected. I think there are well-meaning people whose primary concern is to think well of themselves, to think what good, compassionate, caring people they are. They really believe that by taking other peoples money and spending it on social programs that look like they should accomplish something they are proving what good people they are. They have little interest whether or not the solutions actually work and in fact don't really care much about the people they are trying to "help", as they have already accomplished their personal goals of knowing they are good people and not like those nasty people who don't care enough to throw other people's money at problems.


I suggest Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Annointed for anyone who has not had the pleasure of reading it.