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John Thomas Flynn
58 quotes
“These two baleful mistakes gave Franklin Roosevelt a power which he used ruthlessly. He used it to break down the power of the states and to move that power to Washington and to break down the power of Congress and concentrate it in the hands of the executive. The end of these two betrayals—the smashing of our economic system and the twisting of our political system—can only be the Planned Economic State, which, either in the form of Communism or Fascism, dominates the entire continent of Europe today. The capitalist system cannot live under these conditions. Free representative government cannot survive a Planned Economy. Such an economy can be managed only by a dictatorial government capable of enforcing the directives it issues. The only result of our present system—unless we reverse the drift—must be the gradual extension of the fascist sector and the gradual disappearance of the system of free enterprise under a free representative government.”
John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We can match every one of these blunders among our American planners. When they occur the critics point to the stupidity of the planners. But I think the fault lies rather in the fact that the mind of man, which is after all a very limited instrument, is utterly inadequate for comprehending the vast amount of data and all the innumerable conditions which would have to be grasped in order to make plans for a whole nation. It simply cannot be done. It is conceivable that it may be done in some half-bungling way in a society where an absolute dictator runs the show and has the means not only of enforcing complete compliance but of shutting off all criticism. It can never be done in a society of free men where criticism cannot be silenced and where compliance cannot be enforced.”
John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is another frightful blunder which the Socialists have committed. In taking over the railroads, the coal industry and others, they have bought the properties outright from the corporations and stockholders who owned them. They have paid for them with British bonds paying three per cent interest. With each new industry taken over, the government has added another mass of obligations to its already crushing national debt. Now the folly of this lies in the fact that, under the old order, the stockholders had no claim for profit if none were made by the industry. But all these stocks—pure risk investments—have been converted into government bonds—which are a fixed charge upon the government, whether the industry makes a profit or not. And as all these industries have been operating at a greater or lesser loss, the government has had to find in taxes the means of paying this debt.”
John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Norman Thomas, in particular, has won a unique place for himself in the good opinion of the American people because of his courage, his complete honesty and his great power on the platform as a champion not merely of the Socialist philosophy but of many fine human causes. At one time it had built a considerable propaganda ma-chine. It had the People's House in New York with its large Socialist library and the Rand School which was the center of its educational activity. But it was an honest movement run by honest men who offered socialism to the people and called it by its true name. But Americans made it plain they did not want that. In England the old Fabians, as we have seen, never offered socialism as such. They peddled one product at a time, always omitting the Socialist label.”
John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mr. Chase does not say so and perhaps would not agree, but what they add up to is British Fabian Socialism and American National Socialist Planning, which are precisely the same under different names. The most extensive care is observed to get away from the word ‘socialism.’ This is the advice George Bernard Shaw gave the English. He admitted the English could not nationalize everything. He believed it more likely that nationalization would become the rule and private enterprise the exception. And he urged that we stop talking nonsense about socialism and set to work to nationalizing various things and make an end of insisting on what it shall be called.”
John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the ringleaders in that organization are the men who must be identified as infinitely more dangerous to the civilization of this country than the small group of Red birds of passage against whom they were fulminating. For it is they who are plotting to wipeout the traditional political and economic civilization of this country and to supplant it with a system of organized social life on the Fabian model. They wrap themselves in a mantle they call anti-communism. But they are pro-Socialist. They are not willing, of course, publicly to concede that. They are Planners. That is, they are Socialist Planners—and unless they are identified, recognized for what they are and are stopped they will destroy this country.”
John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Another oily illusion fostered by the politicians is that the ‘government needs the money.’ You will do well to keep in mind that the ‘government’ is merely a collection of rules and regulations and authorizations. It is not a human, living thing you can see or touch with your fingers. In itself it is something you can describe as a tremendous authority—a group of powers. But this authority and these powers are all in the hands of men—politicians. The government is a vast army of politicians equipped by the Constitution with great and dangerous powers.• Among these powers the most dangerous is the power of these politicians to put their hands in your pocket or your bank account or your pay check and take away a very sizeable chunk of your dollars.”
John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Hand in Your Pocket,” broadcast over the Mutual Broadcasting System (January 22, 1956), published by America's Future, Inc., in 1956
“This dangerous grant of powers to the politicians may be said—as I shall show—to be at the bottom of all our troubles-our entanglement in the brawls of other nations all over the globe, our own oppressive national debt, the swarms of political hirelings consuming our substance in every part of the country and—most serious of all—the slow but quickening creep of this great free nation into the toils of something called the Collectivist State, which is a pretty name for socialism. It may be well to remind the reader that Karl Marx, the father of modem socialism, put the income tax high up on his blueprint for destroying private enterprise and building the socialist State.”
John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Hand in Your Pocket,” broadcast over the Mutual Broadcasting System (January 22, 1956), published by America's Future, Inc., in 1956