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b6ae32e
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If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.
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war
politics
change
happiness
philosophy
contests
data
popular
brilliance
taxation
information
motion
questioning
worry
facts
government
peace
ignorance
thinking
forget
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Ray Bradbury |
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c4feae0
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So why don't Americans cheat? Because they think that their system is legitimate. People accept authority when they see that it treats everyone equally, when it is possible to speak up and be heard, and when there are rules in place that assure you that tomorrow you won't be treated radically different from how you are treated today. Legitimacy is based on fairness, voice and predictability, and the U.S. government, as much as Americans like to grumble about it, does a pretty good job of meeting all three standards. Pg. 293
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equality
taxation
legitimacy
government
fairness
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Malcolm Gladwell |
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46513e6
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Given a choice between patterns of subsistence that are relatively unfavorable to the cultivator but which yield a greater return in manpower or grain to the state and those patterns that benefit the cultivator but deprive the state, the ruler will choose the former every time. The ruler, then, maximizes the state-accessible product, if necessary, at the expense of the overall wealth of the realm and its subjects.
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centralization
free-market
taxation
economics
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James C. Scott |
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601cfba
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"Encouragement of sedentarism is perhaps the oldest "state project," a project related to the second-oldest state project of taxation."
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nomadism
nomad
taxation
state
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James C. Scott |