Savor some Bastiat!

I have not the pleasure of knowing my reader, but I would stake ten to one that for six months he has been making Utopias, and if so, that he is looking to Government for the realization of them.

And should the reader happen to be a lady, I have no doubt that she is sincerely desirous of seeing all the evils of suffering humanity remedied, and that she thinks this might easily be done, if Government would only undertake it.

But, alas! that poor unfortunate personage, like Figaro, knows not to whom to listen, nor where to turn.

He then lists all the things the People clamor for. Your favorite is in there, I'm sure. And your worst enemy's favorite as well. And Social-Democratic states - including the US - the world over are providing them.

And my worst enemy is gloating, "Isn't this wonderful?"*

This excerpt is from "Government." If you don't already have the Complete Works of Bastiat, download them free via this article. Or you can buy them there as well. "Government" is the essay in which you'll find his definition

Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

*Thom "Champion of the Statist Status Quo" Hartman comes to mind as an example. Then there's George Bush I&II, Jim Ramsted...

Oh, I gotta tack on one more paragraph:

Citizens! In all times, two political systems have been in existence, and each may be maintained by good reasons. According to one of them, Government ought to do much, but then it ought to take much. According to the other, this twofold activity ought to be little felt. We have to choose between these two systems. But as regards the third system, which partakes of both the others, and which consists in exacting everything from Government, without giving it anything, it is chimerical, absurd, childish, contradictory, and dangerous. Those who proclaim it, for the sake of the pleasure of accusing all Governments of weakness, and thus exposing them to your attacks, are only flattering and deceiving you, while they are deceiving themselves.

You might be interested to know that Bastiat was writing this during this era in France.