A government big enough to give you everything you want

Posted by ESC on April 08, 2009 at 23:46

In Reply to: A government big enough to give you everything you want posted by Brian from Shawnee on April 08, 2009 at 18:13:

: : Does anyone have an historical frame of reference for the quote used by Barry Goldwater and Gerald Ford: "a government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you have". Even though it seems a little oxymoronish, I am still interested in the origin.

: : Who first said "give a hungry man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a hungry man how to fish, and he eats for a lifetime"?

: Oxymoronish? If something is big enough to do A (good), it is also big enough to do B (bad). How's that an oxymoron?

Maybe "If Elected" has context:

"If the Government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have." Gerald Ford, 38th president of the United States. John F. Parker, "If Elected" . From "Oxford Dictionary of Quotations," Fifth Edition, edited by Elizabeth Knowles (Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2001). Page 319.

"Any government which had both the power and the will to remedy the major defects of the capitalist system would have the will and the power to abolish it altogether, while governments which have the power to retain the system lack the will to remedy its defects." Joan Robinson, English economist, 1903-1983. Economic Journal, Dec. 1936. "The Yale of Quotations" edited by Fred R. Shapiro, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006. (Page 640.

• A government big enough to give you everything you want Smokey Stover 09/April/09