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Unchecked, government social programs are a security threat because they weaken the ultimate line of defense: the free-born citizen whose responsibilities are not subcontracted to the government.

Mark Steyn

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Mark Steyn
Age: 64
Born: 1959
Born: December 8
Film Critic
Journalist
Music Critic
Pundit
Writer
City of Toronto
Lines
Defense
Responsibility
Threat
Free
Program
Born
Ultimate
Unchecked
Social
Whose
Weaken
Government
Citizens
Responsibilities
Line
Programs
Security
Citizen

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A big chunk of Western civilization, consciously or otherwise, has given the impression that it's dying to surrender to somebody, anybody. Reasonably enough, Islam figures: Hey, why not us?
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The progressive Left can be in favor of Big Government or population control but not both. The mutual incompatibility is about to plunge Europe into societal collapse. There is no precedent in human history for economic growth on declining human capital - and that's before anyone invented unsustainable welfare systems.
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America is now a land that rewards failure - at the personal, corporate, and state level.
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In Britain, everything is policed except crime.
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Last month, 80,000 Americans signed on to new jobs, but 85,000 Americas signed on for Social Security disability checks. Most of these people are not 'disabled' as that term is generally understood. Rather, it's the U.S. economy that's disabled, and thus Obama incentivizes dependency.
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But, once you get a taste for shutting people up, it's hard to stop. Why bother winning the debate when it's easier to close it down?
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When the family dies, the nation follows.
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When a man doesn't know the meaning of the word 'fear', that might just be a deficiency in his education.
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One lesson of Sept. 11 is that a government that tries to do everything is likely to do most of it badly.
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For Americans, the quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what LBJ's Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population.
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Even if you don't mind Romneycare, or the abortion flip-flop, or any of the rest, there's a more basic problem: He's not a natural campaigner, and on the stump he instinctively recoils from any personal connection with the voters.
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[To] the progressive mind, the very concept of the enemy is obsolescent: there are no enemies, just friends whose grievances we haven't yet accommodated.
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Once you accept you're a child in the government nursery, why shouldn't Nanny tell you what to do?
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America is the brokest country in history. We owe more money than anyone has ever owed anyone. And Obama and Reid say relax, that's no reason not to spend more - because the world hasn't yet concluded we have no intention of paying it back. When they do, the dollar will collapse.
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The industrial powerhouse of 1950 [Detroit] is now a crime-ridden wasteland with a functioning literacy rate equivalent to West African basket-cases.
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The trouble with the social-democratic state is that, when government does too much, nobody else does much of anything.
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Big Government is the small option: it's the guarantee of smaller freedom, smaller homes, smaller cars, smaller opportunities, smaller lives.
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LBJ held up Detroit as a model of what the Great Society could accomplish. He was right.
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Every power grab is the new base camp for the next power grab.
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How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. How do you get away from it? Improvise.
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