| | Was recently scanning the Wiemar Republic and the constitution governing its existence. A boggling and complex chain of events. A fair and just constitution shuffled under the rug by Authorities utilizing an appeal to emotions of a populace in a state of flux and chaos. Exploiting said flux and chaos Hitler demonstrated what his country could do for him.
A government is only as good as its people, not vice versa. A holder of any post in our government should have qualities of benevolence , generosity and patience to deal with those that are shortsighted , misinformed or fearful.
This comparison of quotes demonstrates how words can be misconstrued . Suppose Kennedy had said them as a humble admission of responsibility while Hitler uttered a similar phrase to steal a job for a lifetime.
Perhaps a rational egoist accepts the fact that ones ego is a thinly veiled sphere, while a rational moralist through hypothesis, experimentation, and conclusion is capable of maintaining ones own moral inventory.
When it was stated "all 'men' are created equal" .one could construe it to mean "all 'men' are born ignorant".
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In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country....” Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic “what your country can do for you” implies that the government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man’s belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, “what you can do for your country” implies that the government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them... [H]e regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served. The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather “What can I and my compatriots do through government” to . . . advance our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?
