Wisdom from the past, especially Benjamin Franklin, applicable to the present

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."Benito Mussolini.
While a definition more than wisdom, it behooves us to identify what was the nature of Fascism and even National Socialism: Hitler lined up the leaders of German industry behind him like so many puppets or stiffly-immobile victims of Vlad the Impaler.Any comparison to the photo-ops of the healthcare industry promising $2Trillion(!)of savings over ten years?(By EXPANDING the reach of healthcare, no less! )Of auto industry executives endorsing mileage and emissions standards impossible to meet by the laws of physics without compromising safety and saleability?

Would that our current politicians read and understood history and the wisdom of such as Benjamin Franklin.
"All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse."
Starting with Paulson's Panic, aided and abetted by Bernanke and Geithner, passively permitted by Bush and enthusiastically endorsed by Obama, Draconian measures adduced to immediate problems, but heedless of future consequences, have threatened the whole American system.

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
Bailouts of one by another, redistribution and avoidance of income tax liability by almost 50% of the population, threaten the commonwealth as Aristotle predicted 2500 years ago when he noted that, when the majority realizes it can vote the tax burden onto the minority, it presages the destruction of the polis. The arming of the lamb used to be the nature of a Constitutional Republic protecting the rights of a minority ( N.B. not the privileged "minorities" of political correctness ) through the Constitution and properly-just operation of the judicial system. Now that the Constitution itself is subject to both attack and "reinterpretation", and judges act out of empathy, that protection and arming is lost.

"A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats."
When the legislature and the Presidency are all staffed by lawyers, it is inevitable that their thinking and interests ( e.g. the tort lawyers as a glaring example ) will dominant the conversation, to the detriment of the rest.Of course, it is in the nature of politicians to consider their own re-election and seniority as their paramount priorities and the corrupt-but-legal system of earmarks, lobbyist contributions, etc. follows.

"Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion."
Almost all of the "new projects", falsely heralded as "change", are actually old, warmed-over and historically-discredited ideas and failed initiatives from the past. Those who don't know history, and use the excuse that they were too young or not even born at the time, repeat follies that prudence would otherwise cause any sensible person to avoid.

"Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason."
Unhappily, this is the successful strategy of the party of PrincipALS, rather than PrincipLES. The tort lawyers, the teachers' unions, the UAW, the environmentalists, the socialists, the one-worlders, the pacifists,the Hispanics, the affirmative-action-babies, etc are all interest groups who are so defined by their interests as to cause them to endorse any hodge-podge of programs so long as their interests are addressed, especially if they don't have to participate much in paying for them.

"It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part."
That we are far beyond this ( however one interprets that to which the percentage is applied: income, wealth, etc.) is due to the unequal weight with which the burden falls on voters. Taxes paid by others weigh not at all on voters who pay little or nothing while, at the same time, engendering enthusiasm for more spending (shared) even at the cost of onerous taxes ( unshared.)

"Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. ... Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase,and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them." An indictment of redistributionism, Franklin recognizes the benefits even to the poor of refraining from giving them something for nothing: self-esteem, dignity, empowerment to self-improve one's lot.

"Even peace may be purchased at too high a price." The best counter to the Leftist mantras: Better red than dead; War should always be the LAST resort (presumably after appeasement and surrender ). I often ask of those who proudly profess to be members of one or another movement or organization with "Peace and Justice" in their title: What do you do when peace and justice are in conflict with each other? I have yet to have such a one acknowledge that there could be a conflict, so desperate is their inability to make a choice. (There is an old Yiddish proverb that translates to: Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.) Franklin had another relevant aphorism about this:
"Make yourselves sheep and the wolves will eat you."