Link of the Day: Wisdom From Ben Shapiro

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The government is a giant, lumbering idiot. Sometimes we need a giant, lumbering idiot. Almost always, we do not. And those who have used this pandemic response — one of the rare times we need a giant, lumbering idiot to intimidate people into preventing mass infection of one another, and to borrow the money necessary to redress the injuries thus incurred — as a rationale for a government-run “new politics” should have their heads examined.

— Stop Pretending Pandemic Politics Are the New Norm
Townhall.com | April 1, 2020 | Ben Shapiro

One Comment

  1. The conditions under which such emergency powers may be granted without creating the danger that they will be retained when the absolute necessity has passed are among the most difficult and important points a constitution must decide on. ‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded – and once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed such emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist. Indeed if all needs felt by important groups that can be satisfied only by the exercise of dictatorial powers constitute an emergency, every situation is an emergency situation. It has been contended with some plausibility that whoever has the power to proclaim an emergency and on this ground to suspend any part of the constitution is the true sovereign. This would seem to be true enough if any person or body were able to arrogate to itself such emergency powers by declaring a state of emergency.

    F.A. Hayek – Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 3, ch. 17

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