Quotation of the Day…

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… is the opening lines of Robert Higgs’s excellent October 2009 Mercatus Center Policy Brief titled “The Political Economy of Crisis Opportunism”:

In personal life, no one relishes a crisis, but in political life, many people pray for a crisis as drought-stricken farmers pray for rain. For these people, a societal crisis promises to bring not extraordinary difficulties, dangers, and challenges, but rather enlarged opportunities.

DBx: Yep. If you fancy yourself a savior, you need people who need saving – or, better yet, people who you can hoodwink into thinking that they need your saving. People who can be so hoodwinked into thinking that they need you to save them from some imaginary terror besetting them today, or from some monster approaching from just around the bend, are people who will be especially willing to turn over their treasure and liberties to their saviors.