ALAN writes:

And when the Congress put their hands, not into their own pockets, but into the National Treasury, for the purpose of bestowing alms on a selected portion of our citizens, it may be well to pause and recall the description given by [Guglielmo] Ferrero, the noted modern historian of ancient Rome, of some of the causes which led to the fall of that proud and prosperous Empire:

‘Little by little, the State let itself be persuaded to do for each of its cities what it had done for Rome….  With a view to easing the misery of the urban proletariat, it took public works in hand in every direction, regardless of their utility.  It distributed victuals free or at half-price….

‘But all these schemes cost money…. The intensification of the evil was met by an increase in the dose of the very remedy which aggravated it….  Matters went from worse to worse, until the system reached the limit of its elasticity, and the whole social fabric collapsed in a colossal catastrophe.  This is precisely the mistake which modern civilization must learn to avoid….’

It is dangerous folly to teach people to regard Government as something which exists to pay their bills.  What we, each of us, need today is a good stiff dose of robust, local, self-reliance.  Self-help breeds self-respect….

— American legal scholar Charles Warren, Congress as Santa Claus  [Charlottesville, Virginia, The Michie Company, 1932], pp. 144-46

Do those words not apply precisely to the gargantuan Welfare State that Americans who work for a living agree to support for the benefit of those who don’t work and don’t want to?

Do they not apply precisely to a Government that promises alms not only to “a selected portion of our citizens” that expands every year, but also to millions who are not citizens but parasites and opportunists?

To a Government that promises to provide those alms not by reaching into its own pockets (which are empty) but into other people’s pockets?

To a Government that presumes to give welfare handouts—free food, clothing, housing, medicine, and creature comforts—of things created by productive men to those who are not productive and don’t want to work?

To a population who have been taught for generations “to regard Government as something which exists to pay their bills” and solve their problems from cradle to grave?

Could Mr. Warren and Mr. Ferrero have imagined in 1932 such an exponential increase and expansion of a National Welfare State?  Or that Americans are now taught to regard that as a good thing?  Or that Americans agreed by the millions to regard deficit spending as a good thing?  Or that entire generations of American men—once known for their masculine pride, independent spirit, and opposition to charity—would happily surrender their responsibilities, their rights, and any capacity for “robust, local, self-reliance”…?

And if self-reliance breeds self-respect, then what does increased and prolonged dependence on a Welfare State breed?  Are there people anywhere in history who were as blind, deaf, and dumb to these questions as Americans are today?

“Little by little, the State let itself be persuaded…..”  I would reword that to read:  Little by little, over one generation after another, American men agreed to surrender their responsibilities to the State, which of course, like all power-hungry governments, was only too happy to accept them.  And such men now agree to cede even more power to the State in the form of what are called “public-private partnerships”, a political-philosophical swindle in response to which most Americans express enthusiasm or witless acquiescence.

Here then is another sparkling lesson in how Americans learn from history that they are adamantly opposed to learning anything from history.

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