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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (24882)	7/19/2000 2:57:37 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

the heritage of the West The power of the ideas of Plato and Aristotle and others is that they were understood and expanded upon by others. As Issac Newton said "If I have seen farther, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants". But Newton wouldn't have gotten very far with calculus if he had not been using the number system devoped in India. It may seem that all great ideas come from western civilization only because the west incorporated and expanded upon the ideas from Greece, China, and the Middle East. the ability to dispose of one's wealth is a part of the free market, and confiscatory taxation is socialistic. Only the top dog on a despotic heap has complete control over his finances. Everyone else pays some tribute or tax. This has been a part of western and eastern civilization as well as parts in between. So what is confiscatory? At the time of the civil war the U.S. and Argentena had similar technology, culture, and standard of living. A major difference between then and now is that the U.S. nipped the huge concentration of wealth and power that was growing around the industrial revolution while Argentena grew into an oligarchy of wealthy families with a vested interest in allowing no change. evolution, as a scientific theory, does not lead anywhere Biological evolution is not a directed process. The more people mix their genes, the more stable the species becomes. Who knows what the next million years will bring, especially if people become isolated in different environments such as Mars or space transports. Whether it is a good thing or not is always decided by the survivors. When you get to the evolution of ideas (memes) then a whole lot of different processes are involved. New ideas can be learned and opinions can change. This can lead to a directed outcome as anyone who has managed an R&D development process can attest.