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

To: Neeka who wrote (151209)	6/6/2001 1:17:38 PM
From: George Coyne	Respond to of 769670

Nice post, m. I've long felt that the only thing we really have to deal with the real world is the power of our individual logic and reasoning. Forces one to believe that those who are impervious to reason are lacking in the ability to use it and must resort to mantras to find some sense of efficacy.

To: Neeka who wrote (151209)	6/6/2001 2:58:37 PM
From: CYBERKEN	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

The terminology changes with the times and the type of government that dominates. The original liberals called themselves "progressives" in the late 19th century when the concept of increasingly intrusive government was looked on as a vehicle to alleviate the suffering caused by early industrialization. The founding fathers and their philosophical sympathizers, such as Edmund Burke, referred to themselves as liberals, a term which eventually evolved into classical liberal, connoting the placing of a higher value on individual thought and activity. In the years since 1970 in the US, the radical left has totally triumphed in the worlds of journalism, academia, and certain interest groups whose primary interest is obtaining redistributionist subsidies from the public sector. Unlike the late 19th and early 20th centuries, public sector intervention in private matters for the "best of intentions" has become widely recognized as a failure, while retaining the inertia of millions of citizens who have become dependent on "middle-class entitlements". This situation cannot last, and has already shown great signs of weakness. The main refuge of reactionaries today lies in the extensive liberal wing of the Democratic party, which concerns itself primarily with resisting regulatory and institutional reforms, and fighting tax reform. The Democrats lost the recent tax bill fight because the only argument they could present was that they wanted to preserve the old, inefficient institutions and agencies by throwing more and more money at them, and thus need to suck more money in from the productive sectors of the economy. Technology and the intellectual bankruptcy of public "social" projects has made the private sector once again the center of innovation and new practical ideas. The intellectual bankruptcy of our academic institutions has driven the legitimate innovative thinkers to think tanks and non-mainstream media, including the Internet. The old 19th century socialism, as expressed by the Clinton/Gore team and paid homage to by the Democratic left in Congress today, is thus gradually fading away, as their lack of credibility becomes more apparent. Over the next several years we will see their last desperate battles being fought over preserving past failures: high taxes, regulation, left-wing judicial appointments, public education and teachers unions, and out-of-control tort law extortion. It is only a question of time before their defeat is total, but they can still do a lot of damage in the meantime...