首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
To govern is to choose how the revenue raised from taxes is spent. So far so good, or bad. But some people earn more money than
To govern is to choose how the revenue raised from taxes is spent. So far so good, or bad. But some people earn more money than
admin
2019-08-27
26
问题
To govern is to choose how the revenue raised from taxes is spent. So far so good, or bad. But some people earn more money than others. Should they pay proportionately more money to the government than those who earn less? And if they do pay more money are they entitled to more services than those who pay less or those who pay nothing at all? And should those who pay nothing at all because they have nothing get anything? These matters are of irritable concern to our rulers, and of some poignancy to the rest.
Although the equality of each citizen before the law is the rock upon which the American Constitution rests, economic equality has never been an American ideal. In fact, it is the one unmentionable subject in our politics, as the senator from South Dakota recently discovered when he came up with a few quasi-egalitarian tax reforms. The furious and enduring terror of Communism in America is not entirely the work of those early cold warriors Truman and Acheson. A dislike of economic equality is something deep-grained in the American Protestant character. After all, given a rich empty continent for vigorous Europeans to exploit (the Indians were simply a disagreeable part of the emptiness, like chiggers), any man of gumption could make himself a good living. With extra hard work, any man could make himself a fortune, proving that he was a better man than the rest. Long before Darwin the American ethos was Darwinian.
The vision of the rich empty continent is still a part of the American unconscious in spite of the Great Crowding and its attendant miseries; and this lingering belief in the heaven any man can make for himself through hard work and clean living is a key to the majority’s prevailing and apparently unalterable hatred of the poor, kept out of sight at home, out of mind abroad.
Yet there has been, from the beginning, a significant division in our ruling class. The early Thomas Jefferson had a dream: a society of honest yeomen, engaged in agricultural pursuits, without large cities, heavy industry, banks, military pretensions. The early (and the late) Alexander Hamilton wanted industry, banks, cities, and a military force capable of making itself felt in world politics. It is a nice irony that so many of today’s laissez-faire conservatives think that they descend from Hamilton, the proponent of a strong federal government, and that so many liberals believe themselves to be the heirs of the early Jefferson, who wanted little more than a police force and a judiciary. Always practical, Jefferson knew that certain men would rise through their own good efforts while, sadly, others would fall. Government would do no more than observe this Darwinian spectacle benignly, and provide no succor.
In 1800 the Hamiltonian view was rejected by the people and their new President Thomas Jefferson. Four years later, the Hamiltonian view had prevailed and was endorsed by the reelected Jefferson. Between 1800 and 1805 Jefferson had seen to it that an empire in posse had become an empire in esse. The difference between Jefferson I and Jefferson II is reflected in the two inaugural addresses.
It is significant that nothing more elevated than greed changed the Dr. Jekyll of Jefferson I into the Mr. Hyde of Jefferson II. Like his less thoughtful countrymen, Jefferson could not resist a deal. Subverting the Constitution he had helped create, Jefferson bought Louisiana from Napoleon, acquiring its citizens without their consents. The author of The Declaration of Independence was quite able to forget the unalienable rights of anyone whose property he thought should be joined to our empire — a word which crops up frequently and unselfconsciously in his correspondence.
In the course of land-grabbing, Jefferson II managed to get himself into hot water with France, England, and Spain simultaneously, a fairly astonishing thing to do considering the state of politics in Napoleonic Europe.
The author holds that Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana territories______.
选项
A、may be seen as a hypocritical act
B、rigorously held with his previous views of inalienable rights
C、cannot be seen as an act of empire-expansion
D、was an act meant to lower taxes and improve the wealth of the nation
答案
A
解析
根据倒数第二段中的“Subverting the Constitution he had helped create,Jefferson bought Louisiana from Napoleon...The author of The Declaration of Independence was quite able to forget the unalienable rights of anyone”可知,杰斐逊推翻了他帮助制定的宪法,从拿破仑那里买下了路易斯安那州,完全忘记了公民不可剥夺的权利。据此可知,A项“被看作是一种伪善的行为”正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/W7NYFFFM
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Whenthereportwaspublished,variousenvironmentalgroupscriticizeditforbeingtoo
发展中国家的人们若为移民问题操心,往往是想到硅谷或发达国家的医院和大学去创造自己最辉煌的未来。英国、加拿大和澳大利亚等国给大学毕业生提供的优惠移民政策,就是为了吸引这部分人群。诸多研究表明,发展中国家受过良好教育的人才往往可能有移民倾向。2004年,曾针对
在得病以前,我受父母宠爱,在家中横行霸道,一旦隔离,拘禁在花园山坡上一幢小房子里,我顿感被打入冷宫,十分郁郁不得志起来。一个春天的傍晚,园中百花怒放,父母在园中设宴,霎时宾客云集,笑语四溢。我在山坡的小屋里,悄悄掀起窗帘,窥见园中大干世界一片繁华。自己的哥
Justfourbitsofinformationcollectedfromashopper’screditcardcanbeusedtoidentifyalmostanyone,researchershavefou
Justfourbitsofinformationcollectedfromashopper’screditcardcanbeusedtoidentifyalmostanyone,researchershavefou
With______exceptions,theformerpresidentdoesnotappearinpublicnow.
Everyonehasamomentinhistory,whichbelongsparticularlytohim.Itisthemomentwhenhisemotionsachievetheirmostpower
AcenturyagointheUnitedStates,whenanindividualbroughtsuitagainstacompany,publicopiniontendedtoprotectthatcom
Oneofthemostinterestinginhabitantsofourworldisthebee,aninsectwhichisindigenoustoallpartsoftheglobeexcept
Thelessthesurfaceofthegroundyieldstotheweightofafully-loadedtruck,______tothetruck.(中南大学2007年试题)
随机试题
国家公务员在年度考核中被确定不称职的,或者不胜任现职又不宜转任同级其他职务的,应按照规定程序予以()
成人低蛋白治疗饮食指每日蛋白含量为()。
女性,22岁,检查时发现镜下血尿,下列哪种说法不正确
某女,25岁,头晕、乏力2年,近3个月加重。检查结果:血红蛋白58g/L,骨髓亚铁氰化钾染色,骨髓外铁(+++)。除下列哪种疾病外,均有可能
目前对提高人群免疫力起关键作用的是
某再生障碍性贫血病人,出现高热,伴抽搐,此时,最合适的降温措施是()。
以下对国际发展援助的认识正确的是()
国家推广普通话,推行()。
布莱德雷曾说:“(日本)这个曾是敌国的国家,对我国来说不仅是太平洋上最强大的堡垒,而且作为太平洋战争胜利的果实,是留在我们手中唯一有价值的地方。”“二战”后,日本的“价值”主要体现在()。
设常数λ>0,且级数()
最新回复
(
0
)