A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

TnT says:
=============
I live in NYC, and if I want, I can travel to California without
getting anyones permission, or carrying papers, and having to bribe
border guards to let me pass. It is trully amazing.
==============

Well, I don't know about amazing. If you and I want to visit (I'm in
Canada), we'd both have to wait in infernal lines at the border and be
subjected to interrogation by boder officials.

If you twits would quit letting terrorists in, we might not have to.

Our friends in Europe
can travel from, say, Germany, to Holland, to France, to Spain, and
NEVER have to stop at the border. That, to me, is more amazing.

Well, first, it's an extremely recent thing. For most of history, you still
had to have a passport and stop at the borders. It remains to be seen if the
lack of border controls in the EU will be beneficial or will facilitate the
movement of terrorists. Nonetheless, the EU's epiphany regarding open
borders merely copycats what's been happening in the United STATES for more
than 200 years. We may not have utterly unguarded borders with Canada or
Mexico, but not only CAN you travel freely from state to state in the US,
you have an absolute constitutional right to do so, regardless of what any
particular state may say.


You may have thought my response to comrade Weiser was funny, but he
truly did nicely articulate some socialist truths.

No I didn't, you just fail to understand socialism.

Very clearly,
governments, representing the people, have to make some decisions
deemed to be in the strategic interests of the nation. Scott happens to
think corporate welfare to agri-business constitutes such a strategic
interest. I don't know. Only the people of America can be the judge of
that.

However, I challenge all right-wingers who are of like mind (that is,
agree with Scott) to consider that nations which they consider to be
"socialist" may have made similar, democratic and strategic choices.

They may well have done so, although in the vast majority of cases the
choices are anything but "democratic." They are most often entirely
undemocratic, as the proletariat has no voice whatsoever in their government
or in the selection of government officials. There are some rare exceptions.


They may have decided that it is in the nation's strategic interest to
have an educated populace. Consequently they may fund free schools and
universities in a strategic interest.

Which they are entitled to do.

I do not consider it far fetched
for a people to decide that it is in their strategic interests to have
a healthy populace -- and to fund medical care.

Which is fine, except that socialized medicine has been proven to be a death
sentence for the seriously ill because underpaid, overworked doctors have no
reason to extend themselves and because health care is free, people with
minor complaints feel free to clog the system with petty complaints.

Ask anyone in Britain with heart disease how long they've been on the
surgery waiting list for proof.

In a capitalistic health care system such as the US, you can obtain the best
health care in the world, if you can afford it...and indeed in most cases
even if you cannot (through subsidies paid medical providers by the
government) when you need it because the marketplace provides rewards for
exemplary service.

Other nations see the
ability of people to travel with ease as a strategic interest -- and
fund public transit.

So do we.


Look, if THE PEOPLE choose to fund a variety of activities, that is a
democratic choice. I think it matters little what you call it. Call it
socialism if that pleases you.

It depends entirely upon whether the system is truly democratic, in that it
allows the people to regularly choose their representatives in government,
or whether the socialism is imposed by the unelected bureaucratic elite upon
the proletariat.

In the vast majority of cases, socialist systems do not allow the
proletariat any choice at all, because socialism presumes, as a fundamental
precept, that government bureaucrats are better able to judge what the
proletariat need and deserve than the proletariat itself is.


Me, I'd rather pay welfare to the poor that welfare to corporations.
I'm hoping my fellow citizens agree with me.

The flaw in your logic is that when you pay welfare to the poor, they don't
produce anything in return, and they have no impetus to improve their
condition and become productive members of society. Just look at places like
Denmark, where the marginal tax rates are above 50%, and half the nation is
on the dole, paid by the other half.

When you give subsidies to companies to help them succeed, excel and become
larger, the immediate return is more jobs that the poor can take, thus
becoming productive and self-sufficient members of society rather than
leeches.

Giving money to the poor is like giving a fish to a hungry man. He'll eat
the fish and be hungry again in six hours. Put him to work on a fishing
boat, bought with a low-cost government loan, and not only will he never be
hungry again, but he'll feed others and improve the economy.

Welfare is the touchstone of the failure of the liberal democrat's agenda.
They simply cannot understand that it is better for everyone to support
business, which employs the unemployed and moves the economy forward, than
it is to simply dole out tax money to the indigent.

In this country you have the right to *pursue* happiness, not a guarantee
that you will achieve it. You have a right to *fail* to achieve happiness
too, and it's up to each individual to provide for their own happiness, or
lack thereof. It's not an obligation of the rest of us (through our
government) to provide happiness.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

TnT says:
===============
What the Kansas school board does is based very little on who our
president is, but on their freedom to decide what they want for their
children.
================

I understand all of this local autonomy stuff. My point really was less
about freedom and more about general attitudes and values. I was using
the Kansas school board more or less as a metaphor for right-wing,
FC-influenced policies. I was exressing concern for values that I think
are taking us (you in the USA) back into the dark ages.

How very diverse of you. You do recognize that people do have a right to the
free exercise of religion down here, don¹t you? I do understand that up in
PC Canada, insulting any ethnic group is a crime, but I don't think there's
anything wrong with the majority of people in the US requiring their
government policies to reflect the majority viewpoint. That's why we have
elections, after all.


Of course the woman in Afghanistan under the Taliban didn't have
choices. And we should be reviled by that. Similarly, the science
teacher should not be required to teach anything that is not science --
you should not force the science teacher to tell lies and to deny that
dinosaurs once roamed the earth. To do so is to drag the teacher and
the students into the dark ages. Hell, it is not in the strategic best
interests of the USA to have an irrelevant science curriculum unless,
like the Taliban, your objective is to keep people stupid so as to
better manipulate them. The people in the blue states get this.

Your argument fails because no one, in Kansas or anywhere else, is demanding
any such thing. You are completely mischaracterizing the debate, and appear
to be doing so deliberately. Either that or you are just abysmally ignorant
of the actual controversy.


TnT, it's a metaphor for what those of us outside of the USA see
happening in your country. It's not our business, but it's only not our
business insofar as burka-wearing women under the Taliban were not our
business.

To argue that the teacher is free to teach elsewhere is simplistic.
First, the teacher shouldn't be asked to tell lies.

You make the unproven assumption that creationism is a "lie." It's not. It's
a theory, albeit a weak one. A better description of creationism is
"intelligent design" of the universe, which is something that I think you
will find more than a few reputable scientists have questions about.

Secondly, with
possibly a mortgage, children, etc, it is not that easy to move --
freedom is thus an illusion.

Sorry, but that's the Ghetto argument. "Gimme money because I live in a
ghetto." My response is: "If you have two operating feet, get up and walk
out of the ghetto. If you don't want to, then you CHOOSE to live in the
ghetto, and I have no sympathy for your plight."

Sell the house, pack the kids up and move elsewhere, or quit bitching.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

TnT

I have found 2 definitions for you:

(1) An economic system in which the means of production and
distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is
proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in
a free market.

***Here I argue that there exists no free market. Therefore, the
definition is of academic interest only.

(2) an economic system based on private ownership of capital

***In this case Germany, Sweden. Canada, etc definitely qualify as
capitalist. Ever hear of stock exchanges in Sweden? Germany? Canada?
What do you think they trade there? Same thing that gets traded at the
NYSE. But, once again, let's not fool ourselves into believing that
there is a free market. At least not so long as there are only a
handful of oil corps (as just one example) around the globe.

Cheers,
frtzw906
++++++++++++++

Tovarich Weiser says:
==============
In socialism, there is no reward for hard work, and the fruits of your
labor are taken from you by the government and are distributed to
others without your input or approval, and without compensation for
your work. All persons in a socialist regime are required (in theory)
to give their all with no expectation of reward for the benefit
of the proletariat.
==============

What in hell are you talking about?!

frtzw906

Melissa wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hi Michael Daly,

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 20:32:55 GMT, you wrote:

The Tinkering One:

I see them as two sides of the same coin, you don't have a
political system without an economic system. They are joined at
the hip. You can't deal with one, without dealing with the other.
Though I can understand your fine line distinction.

Mike:

There are democratic socialist countries, totalitarian capitalist
regimes and everything in between. The choice of an economic
system does not dictate the political system.

Well said. Here in the grand ole US of A, our political
debate/discussion is often driven by, and caters to, the lowest
common denominator, so that issues that are, in reality, not so
simple can be seen as simple black or white propositions.
Unfortunately, this results in an all too often painfully over
simplistic world view, and even more unfortunately, our often
simplistic "solutions" cause more worldwide harm than good (here as
well; not just for others around the world).

Because of the worldwide scope of US "power", it is never enough to
say that either "we deserve what we get", or that it shouldn't matter
to others around the world what we here decide to do with "our own"
politics. If we were a small and quiet nation without such delusions
of grandeur that we do indeed seem to hold so dear, it might no be so
important to the rest of the world what we do, but this is not the
case.

In general, I see US politics as being particularly solipsistic in
nature, and this, in my view, is never a good thing. Add to that the
very "patriotic/nationalistic" nature of much of US political/social
culture, and most "American's" comprehensive ignorance of the rest of
the world, and "we" are indeed a very dangerous nation. :-(

I've said my bit here, and don't really wish to get more involved
with
this thread, but I would like to thank Mike, Wilko, and frtzw906
("BCITORGB") for their persistence in trying to carry on this
discussion with their well reasoned arguments; above and beyond the
level of discussion usually found here in the USA. :-)

- --
Melissa

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iD8DBQFCDnB+KgHVMc6ouYMRAgxqAKCNuQmCDbE4jHn+3CM4D4 FkzP4HGwCfVobV
Ri4fmAl9hwjtbc8zvTtTmok=
=hfDk
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Dear Melissa, you don't think you can come in to this frackus, and not
get involved with this thread do you. You have been very helpful to me
in the past, and I certainly want to express my appreciation, however
there are no free passes that I have heard about. Especially if you're
going to use those big words around us simple black and white types,
that are just oozing with Patriotic/nationalistic pride. Then you
cuddle up with the boys from up north and across the sea. She must be
from out on the right coast!

But being from the right coast and being enlightened that she is not
the only individual in the real world of the right coast (now that is
reality), maybe you can point me to a Totalitarian capitalistic
country. Especially since you complimented Mike D. on being "well
said", you must know of a defining example.

If you can answer that for me I will give you a pass on the rest of
what you said. "The Tinkering One", TnT

Weiser says:
==========
If you twits would quit letting terrorists in, we might not have to.
===========

I know it is painful to be reminded of this but: the 9-11 guys trained
in the USA... it seems you twits let them in.

frtzw906
=======

weiser:
=======
Well, first, it's an extremely recent thing.
========

not so recent: the first time i crossed borders in europe without being
stopped was 1972

frtzw906

weiser says:
==========
you just fail to understand socialism
=========

you confuse socialism with communism

frtzw906

weiser says:
===========
as the proletariat has no voice whatsoever in their government
or in the selection of government officials.
==============

germany? holland? sweden? uk? canada? surely you jest.

frtzw906

weiser:
========
In a capitalistic health care system such as the US, you can obtain the
best
health care in the world, if you can afford it..
==========

who was it that said something to the effect: "all men are created
equal...." except, of course, when it comes to healthcare

frtzw906