“I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”
― Winston S. Churchill
The Ten Cannots
An outspoken political conservative, Rev. William Henry Boetcker is perhaps best remembered for his authorship of a pamphlet entitled The Ten Cannots, originally published in 1916, that emphasized freedom and responsibility of the individual on himself. It is often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln.
The error apparently stems from a leaflet printed in 1942 by a conservative political organization called the Committee for Constitutional Government. The leaflet bore the title “Lincoln on Limitations” and contained some genuine Lincoln quotations on one side and the “Ten Cannots” on the other, with the credits switched.
There are several minor variants of the pamphlet in circulation, but the most commonly accepted version states:
- You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
- You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
- You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
- You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
- You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
- You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
- You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
- You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
- You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.
- And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.
Now folks, I have to ask, are we not, as a nation, implementing every one of the cannots?
If we are? What in the world are we doing?
Let’s look at some of them again.
- You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
- You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
- You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
Defund the police, tax the rich, close the Keystone pipeline, and shut down fossil fuels, just to name a few.
- You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
Congress is talking about a 90 % tax rate on the wealthy. Do you honestly think that big business is going to eat that cost, or do you think they will simply pass it on to the consumer?
- You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
We currently owe China $1.3 trillion and Japan $1.1 trillion.
- You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
Take a look at the national news. BLM and Antifa are constantly leading the charge that we are a divided nation. Systemic racism is the current catch phrase and the media runs with stories fueling this fire on a nightly basis.
- You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
As usual, the government seems to think that throwing money at every problem is the answer. Let’s send money to Central America to fix the immigration problem. More money for social problems in our inner cities. Funding on a huge scale to address climate change. These are just a few examples.
- You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.
Increased welfare and housing payments along with universal income proposals.
- And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.
How many times have you heard people say, “Why work if you can stay home and make more money?”
Again folks, what are we trying to do here?
The current administration would tell you that they are trying to level the playing field. To make things fair. To create a perfect society. I hate to tell you this, but these ideas have been around for a long time and so far, none of these ideas have worked.
Don’t believe me? How about a little history?
Let’s start with Jeremy Bentham 1748 -1832, an English philosopher who came up with all kinds of ideas to improve the plight of the common man.
He taught based on the idea of utility which stated that the goal of any action should be to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
His followers became known as Utilitarian’s.
He said that government should govern as little as possible but that it should step in when “the pains suffered by many exceed the pleasures enjoyed by the few”.
Now along comes John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873, another English philosopher who took the teachings of Bentham and organized his own utilitarian society.
He said laborers should be allowed to organize unions, form coops, and receive a share of the profits.
He said all men should be able to vote and should be prepared to do so by receiving a free education at state expense.
Finally, he said women should have all these same rights! (crazy talk for the 1850’s)
In his later years, Mills referred to himself as a socialist.
This now led to a group known as Utopian Socialists.
Two of the chief Utopian Socialists were Claude St. Simon and Charles Fourier who came up their own ideas of the perfect society.
Claude St. Simon developed a plan for the perfect French government.
He wanted supreme power given to a parliament made up of 10 industrialists, 5 artists, 5 philosophers, 5 chemists, 5 physiologists, 5 physicists, 5 astronomers, and 5 mathematicians.
Thewhole group would be presided over by one of the math dudes.
Now if you think that is bizarre, let’s talk about Charles Fourier who was way out there.
Another Frenchman, he was shocked by the difference in living conditions between the rich and the poor in Lyon, France.
He said that just as Isaac Newton came up with the force holding planets together, he had found the force holding people together.
He believed that it was possible to make all work into play, to make it pleasurable and desirable and deeply satisfying, both physically and mentally.
This was perhaps the one vision of Fourier’s thought that most captivated other socialist thinkers of the 19th century, including Marx and Engels.
The device which Fourier proposed was what he called a phalanstere.
He said it would be like the ancient Greek phalanx, where men were tightly linked together, forming a highly interdependent and impenetrable fighting unit.
Fourier’s phalanx was to become a self-contained community, on about 400 acres, housing 1,620 members designed to encourage a dynamic interplay of various human passions.
Why 1,620 people? Well, Fourier had determined that there are 810 different psychological types, he called them passions, — if you multiply this by two (male and female), you arrive at a figure of 1,620. Here the Law of Passional Attractions would be allowed to operate unfettered for the first time in history.
Each phalanx would be self-sufficient and all the people would live in one large building.
He said this arrangement would provide for the “social passions” and would make the routine of daily living more efficient with one large kitchen and all the housekeeping would be done by little boys who loved to get dirty anyway.
The workplace would be made as pleasant as possible with bright lighting , frequent redecoration, and workers would change jobs 8 times a day so they wouldn’t get bored.
You worked from 4 am to 9 pm with 5 meals a day. You would sleep only 5 hours since the variety of work wouldn’t make you tired.
He said you wouldn’t need doctors because everyone would live to be 140 years old.
He also advocated complete sexual freedom (on 5 hours sleep?) and said marriage was just for old folks since they were too old to fool around anymore!
According to Fourier, there are twelve fundamental passions: five of the senses (touch, taste, hearing, sight and smell); four of the soul (friendship, love, ambition and parenthood); and three that he called distributive. The first eight passions are self-explanatory. It is the distributive passions that deserve closer attention.
The first of these distributive passions refers to the love of variety. A worker quickly tires of one kind of task, just as lovers, in spite of their initial attraction, soon find themselves looking elsewhere.
Fourier held Christianity in deep contempt because it made people feel guilty when they pursued their natural desire for variety in work or in sex.
For the same reasons, he also hated Adam Smith’s vision of a society of specialists, doing the same thing over and over all in the name of the division of labor.
Whatever the productive advantages of Smith’s economic system, the fact remained, according to Fourier, that it created only stunted and repressed human beings.
Society should strive to eliminate all tedious or unpleasant jobs, learning, if possible, to do without the products created from such labor.
The second of the distributive passions, had to do with rivalry and conspiracy. While in previous societies this passion caused many problems, in the phalanx it would be put to good use.
Productive teams would compete with one another to produce the most delicious peaches or the best pair of shoes.
The need to compete would satisfy a natural passion because all men, by nature, are competitive. And the harmful aspects of competitive commerce in civilization would not be reproduced because production would keep the overall good of society in mind, rather than encouraging individual profit in the market.
Finally, was the distributive passion which Fourier considered the most beautiful of all. Fourier seems to have meant a combination of two or more different varieties of passions — the sharing of a good meal (senses) in good company (soul) while conspiring to arrange a sexual orgy with the couple at the next table.
This is why some of the liberal scholars of the 1960’s studied Fourier.
He was a huge advocate of sexual liberation and a staunch defender of sexual preferences that were clearly not accepted by religion or society.
Sound familiar?
He believed that the only sexual activity that could be forbidden involved pain or force.
He was willing to accept any sexual activity, including homosexuality, that satisfied man’s natural needs.
Fourier was also a radical feminist. He considered the position of women in his surrounding society as a form of slavery.
In one famous passage, he set it down that the level of any civilization could be determined by the extent to which its women had been liberated.
He believed that the existing family structure was partly responsible for the subjugation of women. The family turned people exclusively inward to spouse and children, rather than outward to society.
Fourier’s vision, together with his criticism of the existing system, makes him one of the leading prophets of 19th century socialism.
Let’s face it folks, this guy was a hippie born 100 years too early. Communes, free sex, women’s lib?
Now comes Karl Marx who had read the ideas of people like St. Simon and Fourier.
He took Socialism to a whole new level. Revolutionary Communism.
The socialists pushed for gradual change over a number of years.
Marx said that would never happen. Governments and big business would not voluntarily switch to a socialist society and the only way to make it happen was through revolution brining about immediate change.
Bottom line, communism is socialism at the end of the barrel of a gun.
Communism puts the reins of power into the hands of just a few strongmen who end up calling all the shots.
It’s a system in which suspicion and treason tend to hang in the air.
So, whatever you want to call it, socialism, communism, utopianism, collectivism, even “democratic” socialism or “progressivism”, they all have a common heritage.
Lenin and his gang all started out calling themselves socialists. Social democrats, to be exact. So, the fact remains: the path of socialism is ultimately paved with coercion, censorship, and, yes, terror.
So, there you have it folks. William Boetcker tried to warn us with his pamphlet, “The Ten Cannots” back in 1916. Did we listen? Apparently not.