“To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection, it is plunder.”

To support a group of people who are in need is not plunder, it is compassion.

Alright, another brilliant statement from Disraeli, it's also a dead end one has to back up from and eventually U-Turn back on course.

Compassion is voluntary - when it is forced, it's tyranny.

Government has NEVER been known to be compassionate. If we were to rely on the government for our bread, we should soon starve. It is enough for the law to be 'just' rather than 'philanthropic'.

And working people class have been plundered ever since civilization began.

And nothing has plundered the working classes more than socialism and communism. Can anyone say 'the Fall of the USSR'?

the Fall of the USSR

It seems this subject has dichotomized the issue and the views of the issue into 'pure socialism' versus 'pure absence of socialism'. I submit there can be no such 'purity' of community or national structure. There is 'socialism' of one degree or another in every social aggregation (population). The current fad of pursuing a total absence of 'socialistic' aspects in a society is strangely reminiscent of a 'Hitlerian' pursuit of a 'pure' racial population insofar as it can't be achieved because the idea itself is flawed. Its only charm is the same charm that religion has: It's simple enough to sell to simpletons with a zealot's temperament. There just is no 'social' group perfectly devoid of 'social-istic' aspects in its constitution (no, NOT the document - its 'makeup' or 'structure'). It's almost a tautology that being 'anti-socialistic' in a PURIST sense equates to being 'anti-social'. I'd go so far as to say that not one person reading this can say they DON'T rely (that's RELY) on many aspects of our society that are 'socialistic' while doing the best they can to appear to be 'perfectly self-sufficient'. If you're so 'self-sufficient', why aren't you generating your own power with your own fuel? I hope everyone has built their own roads on which to drive. We've made a paper dragon to rail against and are marching it down Main Street USA.

An "anti-socialist" or "non-social-ist" society needn't exist in order to have roads, power, sewer, or things of the like - to say that a type of "social-ist"economy needs to exist, in some form for these things is like saying, "we need a democracy in order for us to vote". Democracies have no patent on voting or "voice of the people" type government - you can have a pure Republic and vote and have a voice of the people type government too - such is the same with the above, social-ist type principles are not needed to live in a society. Being social has nothing at all to do with Socialism. Building roads, generating power for the masses, providing water and electricty, etc. - these are not commodities that can only be provided in a Socialist setting - a pure Republic, without any social-ist principle, can provide these just as well. However, to be fair, that's not how things are run - socialist type principles are instituted nowadays to provide these things for the people - but that doesn't mean the way we're doing them is the best or most efficient way that these services could be provided.

People in NEED? Compassion? I am tired of supporting the lives of the lazy.

Logan; The assertion: '... is like saying, "we need a democracy in order for us to vote".' is a red herring. The two issues are not in the least alike. The fact remains that most of us could not lead our privileged lives had 'public' funds from taxation not been applied to build roads, bridges, dams, rural electrification projects, 'public' schools, railroads (the Transcontinental Railroad, despite the money-grabs by the tycoons, would not have been built without government funding), etc. The list of things we take for granted today is nearly endless. It is the height of hubris to stand on the mountain of 'social-ist' institutions and decry the very foundations holding one up. As for the statement: "Building roads, generating power for the masses, providing water and electricty (electricity), etc. - these are not commodities that can only be provided in a Socialist setting ..." - did anyone assert that they were? My assertion was that these and many other aspects of ANY society are generally beyond the means of individuals, that they are 'social-istic' in their nature, and that only a zealot's perspective would allow one to attempt to assert otherwise. I don't exactly know whether it's useful to talk of 'socialist principles' because that appears to be a reference to an ideology. Ideologies are not generally very helpful in deciding practical matters (like the war in Iraq for instance). It might be useful to ask what sorts of institutions actually 'DELIVER the goods' in the most sensible manner to the population they are purportedly designed to 'serve'. An ideological stance on either side of this fiction is good for fractiousness but as useful as, well, you can take it from here. It's 'get-a-grip' time. There's no such thing as a successful 'society' without 'social-istic' aspects.

I think the readers are guilty of the same problem as Disraeli is - accepting no middle ground. Very few things are all right or all wrong - all good or all bad. Most things are somewhere in between and very much subjective judgement calls. Therefore statements should be judged with something in between as well. Sometimes what Disraeli said might be true, but not entirely true. The comments should reflect this with the degree to which it is read as true. For my part I give it 3 stars - more true than false.

A from Reston, "To support a group of people who are in need" is an act of giving, not taking. Plunder is an act of taking. Religion is "real piety in practice, consisting in the performance of all known duties to God and our fellow men." (Bouviers Law Dictionary) The duty of supporting a class of our fellow men is a religious act. For government to take on the duty of compassion and supporting the needs of a class or our fellow man defines a theocracy. The taking of the noble laborer's fruit under threat and duress for the advantage of a class is larcenous plunder. For a theocracy to plunder so that in may perform its duties is not protection, or compassion, but rather an immoral and criminal act. For the liberals that love to redefine words for their theocracy's sake, terms such as community, social, public, united, and union do not necessarily define tenets of socialism. Those terms, conditions, and tenets are neutral, independent and utilized in anarchy, a free Constitutional Republic of individual sovereigns, monarchy, socialism, communism, fascism, etc. It is the political administration of the terms that defines the 'ism'.

Government "compassion" is the guise under which we are robbed blind. And the recipients of said compassion are rarely deserving. Mostly they are sycophants who need to learn to support themselves. Fat Chance with a communist in power.

Anonymous, Reston, if a thief held you up and took your money , would you be happy about it if he said that he was giving it to a poor lady to pay the rent, or would you report it to the cops ?

You are so astute today Terry Berg. So many rail against the word "social" "socialism" etcetera while taking advantage of the benefits of living in a society everyday. Taxes have been structured to beneft a class ever since Ronald was President.

...sighs....I am left to mourn because of the unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of men; for they will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be.

A stupid statement coming from a most eminent speaker and politician.

So when Bush approved ridiculous tax cuts for the wealthy and drove the rest of the US into a recession... what was that?

How did Bush drive the US into a recession? It was the Clinton administration with their cheerleading Kenyan friend who started the mortgage meltdown, Democrats like to conveniently overlook that. And taxaton isn't about compassion or infrastructure. It's interest on loans taken out of thin air by the government from the privately owned Federal Reserve. We are taxed to benefit elitist Bankers and their crony pals in Government.

Right, J Carlton.

Another criminal posting attributed to me by Liberty Tree above. If the unethical jerk who posts these comments can apply the name of anyone who has previously replied you can be sure it may happen to you.

Dick, I say this with all sincerity -- you are dumb. As I have explained to you several times before, we do not add any comments to the quote pages. This page was published in February 2003. Your comment was posted on April 6, 2006 at 9:08 AM. This is a BLOG, Dick, in which people add comments to pages. As the years go by, more comments are added to the page. Shall we remove ALL your comments over the years and prohibit you from commenting from here on?

Tyranny falls by its own accord. Bound by the lies with which it fashions its chains of oppression. RVP " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and to depart from evil IS understanding "
Our Creator as Declared by Jefferson is a merciful God to all. We as a people call upon our God, for it is a fool who puts his trust in man. Thanks to the nurturing of True Patriots, by those in this Blog, we find, the Creator, resides among the children of men.

Disraeli said some stupid things and this is one of them....

Altruism is altruism only in the absence of coercion.