[lit-ideas] Re: Defense Welfare

  • From: "Simon Ward" <sedward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:27:18 -0000

"There's a line conservatives are fond of when they're discussing welfare: 
what's batter [sic] for a man -- to give him a fish or to teach him to fish for 
himself?  That goes double for defense welfare."  

I'm sure this mst be an error in transcription, but it's good. Very good. 

As for Steyn, I rang him up and challenged him to a yorkshire pudding making 
competition (a cook off). Though he whipped well, his batter wasn't better, his 
fat wasn't hot enough and so his puddings weren't crispy. Pointless really, but 
he talked well and his supporters in the front row lapped it up. Even it if was 
half-baked.

So Lawrence, for the second time, do you seriously consider Steyn a prime 
source? Is he, for you, as important a commentator as say Ann Coulter?  Or will 
you come clean and admit you read him for his comedy value?

Simon


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Lawrence Helm 
  To: Lit-Ideas 
  Sent: Monday, March 12, 2007 2:18 PM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Defense Welfare


  Andreas accused me of being a recipient of welfare because I served in the 
Marine Corps and worked in America' Defense Industry.  There's no reason to 
belabor the nonsensical nature of that view, but there is a sense in which 
Defense Welfare exists.  I am not the recipient of it, but our European allies 
are:


  "As for America's 'friends, there's another paradox of the non-imperial 
hyperpower: the United State garrisons not remote ramshackle colonies but its 
wealthiest allies, thereby freeing them to spend their tax revenues on 
luxuriant welfare programs rather than on tanks and aircraft carriers and thus 
further exacerbating the differences between America and the rest of the free 
world.  Like any other form of welfare, defense welfare is a hard habit to 
break and damaging to the recipient.  The peculiarly obnoxious character of 
modern Europe is a logical consequence of America's willingness to absolve it 
of responsibility for its own security.  In 1796 George Washington wrote to 
Alexander Hamilton: 'The nation which indulges towards another an habitual 
hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave.   It is a slave to 
its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it 
astray from its duty and its interest.'

  "That neatly sums up the Euro-American relationship: the United States has 
become a slave to its habitual if largely misplaced fondness for Europe, while 
Europe has become a slave to its habitual if entirely irrational hatred for 
America.  There's a line conservatives are fond of when they're discussing 
welfare: what's batter for a man -- to give him a fish or to teach him to fish 
for himself?  That goes double for defense welfare."  [Steyn, p 159-60]


  I don't know about that, Steyn.  Do we really want to trust those wackos with 
weapons again?

  Lawrence

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