Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 5:40pm

Quotes Suitable for Framing: Alexis de Tocqueville

I look back for a moment on the situation of France seven hundred years ago, when the territory was divided among a small number of families, who were the owners of the soil and the rulers of the inhabitants; the right of governing descended with the family inheritance from generation to generation; force was the only means by which man could act on man; and landed property was the sole source of power.

Soon, however, the political power of the clergy was founded and began to increase: the clergy opened their ranks to all classes, to the poor and the rich, the commoner and the noble; through the church, equality penetrated into the government, and he who as a serf must have vegetated in perpetual bondage took his place as a priest in the midst of nobles, and not infrequently above the heads of kings.

 

 

 

 Alexis de Tocqueville,  Democracy in America (1835)

 

 

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Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Sunday, August 9, AD 2020 3:01am

We now live in time not dissimilar from feudal times. A relatively small number of wealthy control nearly all the world’s capital. In response, current trends are taking us in a socialistic direction with the help of the Church which has placed it’s faith in worldly solutions Where do we go?

We should hope that Trump, if re-elected, will do something to rebalance the equation by strong ant-trust action, etc. But he has shown little inclination to do this. Accordingly, we should expect the years ahead will be filled with more furor and anarchy than we are witnessing now. One World Global government will appeal to many. Most folks will give up everything for financial and health security as has been demonstrated.

It will take God Himself to extricate us from this mess. And the extrication will not be pleasant.

Tom Byrne
Tom Byrne
Sunday, August 9, AD 2020 8:26am

Q: I’m not sure De Tocqueville lived long enough to read Marx and Engels. Upon whose formulation of socialism is he commenting?

Tom Byrne
Tom Byrne
Sunday, August 9, AD 2020 10:40am

Don:
Thank you for the reference. I was aware of Godwin and knew that there were other pre-Marxian socialists, some of whom De Tocqueville mentions.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Sunday, August 9, AD 2020 1:05pm

The Church in those days could help frack open the society so bright young people could rise to positions of respect and responsibility BECAUSE of the respect and responsibility attributed to the Church. Today the globalists of Davos and what’s left of EU feign respect for “His Holiness” knowing that the fix is in. These are not separate “estates” any more – The Church of today, the liberal governments and the weight of the media propaganda all work together – against the people. Having agreed that we need fewer people and less freedom they are ready for the future they dream of.
I agree again with Michael Dowd about the necessary intervention of God.

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