> On Jun 28, 7:39 am, "Bob Eld"
yahoo.com> wrote:>>
yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:d5394c2c-d42d-426f-bc62-e3cac0ed018a@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>> On Jun 27, 10:12 pm, "(David P.)" mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>>>> The prosperity since WWII isn't a birthright,
>>>> it has specific causes & can be lost by making
>>>> foolish public policy decisions. An aging
>>>> population can't ride bicycles around, and bad
>>>> weather limits young healthy people. We're now
>>>> living thru the consequences of >30 years of
>>>> bad public policy decisions. More bad decisions
>>>> risk turning our economy & comfortable life
>>>> into a train wreck. - Jitney
>>> Why should the young soldiers have to
>>> fight & die, so we can be fat, dumb & happy
>>> for some more years? 65-75 years of life
>>> aren't enough? Gotta have 85-90?
>>> What'll the world be like with the projected
>>> 9 billion? Is it fair that future generations
>>> have to live in more crowded conditions and
>>> fight over food, fuel, clean air, clean water
>>> and everything else?
>>> .
>>> .
>>> --
>> France rejected the Jimmy Carter-Jane Fonda irrational resistance to
>> nuclear power, 80%% of their electricity is nuclear generated, they
>> don't have to send soldiers to the Middle East. That was an example of
>> a good public policy decision on their part. Our ban on it was
>> foolish, and we are paying a terrible price in blood and treasure. I
>> agree that we are too fat, dumb, and happiness should not be tied to
>> external prosperity but one's inner soul. But having had parents that
>> grew up thru the Great Depression, I can tell you that this is one
>> ordeal that would break the back and spirit of the Mr. Rogers
>> Neighborhood educated generation in a way that would collapse our
>> system of freedom, democracy, and probably lead to a terrible
>> dictatorship. Do we want to follow the path of Latin America and
>> Africa, failed states that swing between banana republics and military
>> dictatorships? Our currency is already becoming like the peso, which
>> is a big part of the current price of oil.
>> Snip....
>>
>> You talk funny for a republican. Why do you think our currency is becoming
>> like the peso? And that, of course, is what leads to the high price of oil
>> and other commodities.
>>
>> Could it be that we haven't paid for waging war by giving unprecedented tax
>> breaks at a time of war and national need, but making up the shortfall by
>> excessive borrowing?
>>
>> The very things you crab about are a direct result of the poor fiscal
>> policies of the Bush administration.
>>
>> It looks like you may get to experience what your parent grew up through,
>> another DEPRESSION. Like last time it will be republican policies that cause
>> it. Stay tuned.- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
>
> I agree that the administration of Bush has been a disaster. He and
> his Democrat-lite Republicans in Congress spent public money, for war
> and non-war purposes, like drunken sailors. He mortgaged our country's
> future to the Chinese.
Setting the wayback machine to 2003, we hear the economic hate-word
"deflation" whispered...
> He left the Mexican border open to alien and
> drug smuggling to satisfy big business desire for endless supplies of
> cheap labor,
Nothing's changed there since the '20s, and you're parroting Hearst
Yellow Peril journalism from about then. Isn't it kind of shocking
how effective that was?
> and possibly set the stage for a European style socialist
> North American Union.
HA!
> He betrayed his Oath of office to faithfully
> execute the laws. I believe he was a wolf in sheep's clothing to the
> faith community, and his family values campaign did not include
> policies that would ensure that families could support themselves.
Most of the problems you decry are due to people jiggering the economy
in favor of being as close to full employment as we can be.
The Depression looms in our collective rear-view mirror.
> I
> am a reluctant Republican, but I am far from being a mindless
> partisan. I am essentially a pro-labor conservative, which is about as
> odd as a pro-life Democrat, but we do exist.
Nothing odd about it - I'd call you an old-school labor Democrat.
Socially conservative, economically liberal. The sort they drew on
for the character of Archie Bunker - a workin' man.
Please note I am not calling you Archie, he's just of that ilk. Dan
Connor from "Roseanne", too. Just common examples, nothing more.
> The Democratic party of
> Roosevelt and Truman is a dinosaur, and for that matter the two party
> system has been so corrupted by big money that it no longer serves the
> public good.
It's been corrupted by Utopianisms. Most have been highly
successful. Roosevelt/Truman were of the "labor" utopia,
Reagan/et al were an electorally designed mashup of "sky's
the limit" economics, "values" politics and a kinder gentler
jingoism.
Both got a lot of what they wanted, up to certain limits. But
the "corruption by big money" isn't necessarily as evil as
you think, nor is it unnecessary. Unless we erect a "chinese
wall" between gummint and bidness, it's gonna happen.
> I hate the Enron and Countrywide style corruption that
> Bush tolerated,
Bush had little to do with it, other than with Fed policy.
The neo-Keynsian money pump caused both.
> but Clinton harmed our oil markets far more during his
> tenure by ignoring the antitrust laws and allowing the merger of the
> then too few seven oil companies into three, re-assembling
> Rockefeller's Standard Oil on the installment plan.
No, I think that's just regression to the mean. The market *wanted*
SO to exist. Sherman Act style antitrust is simply incorrect.
> With all that being said, the enviromentalist view that man does not
> have any place on this planet, that wants to depopulate rural America
> to pre-Columbian times, is an absolute affront to the dignity of Man,
> and the cause of extraordinary present and future suffering.
I think the Utopian/Druid view we see too much of is an artifact of
the medium. Most environmentalists are much more moderate, although
the radicals control the engines of information in environmentalism.
> After the
> last century of atheist socialist ideology that had no respect for the
> dignity of man, the left, discredited from the evils of Stalinism and
> the fall of the Soviet Union has replaced it with an ideology that
> does not distinguish between man and animal
Well, the ....mechanical differences between man and animal are
vanishing. I have a dog that tries to talk to me. Koko the
gorilla could communicate well. In Chomsky's linguistics lecture-
papers, he can't really account for language in evolutionary terms,
nor symbol-managing in ...computational terms. We don't know enough
to explain it. Birds can get ideas across to humans.... African
Greys can solve puzzles... ravens can pick locks...
Then again, Chomsky's a pretty shade of his own, highly ... rigorous
pink. Maybe he just stopped looking, but I'm unaware of anybody
who has taken it further. It's pretty clear that, say , Stephen Jay
Gould had his science biased by Communism. he stopped looking.
They both have magnificent "skyhooks".
He'd at least be a place to start to find out why we are where we are.
I suspect the subject is very painful, and we won't see much progress.
Tom Wolfe's "Charlotte Simmons" has this as a though-experiment - maybe
science at that level just hurts too much. I can't say any more without
spoiling it. If you want it spoiled, ask and I'll spoil it.
--
Les Cargill
