Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (153411)	6/14/2001 6:58:37 PM
From: CYBERKEN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Even if you refuse to, everyone else who may read your pots should keep in mind that every single point was debunked within months after Reagan first proposed the system in 1983...

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (153411)	6/14/2001 6:59:49 PM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Demolibs have always underestimated our military technological prowess. Many of the same people who today say we can't build a Star Wars system to defend against enemy missiles, probably said the same thing regarding our building a stealth airplane which could evade enemy radar. The single greatest asset (besides our people), America has to ensure our military edge is our advance technological capability. The reasons you highlight pale in comparison when measured against the destruction of a city, and the millions of lives which would be lost if hit by a nuclear missile. Not too mention the cost to our economy and our cultural psychology. Being the first to develop and deploy such a system, will no doubt ensure our continued leadership toward world peace, and national security for another millenia to come. If we don't lead who will? If we don't look with vision toward the future continuously striving to ensure world peace, who will? 1 trillion dollars is just a made up rhetorical figure. Its ring might get an emotional reaction from those who live by sound-bites. But that's about it. The simple fact is, we have no idea how long it will take to build and deploy such a system. Or whether it's already working. These kind of Top Secret Weapons systems have a way of staying hidden from the public until needed. I don't blame you for avoiding the education issue after mentioning it in passing to defend your argument.

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (153411)	6/14/2001 7:00:04 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Jack Kemp A party that stands for nothing deserves to lose jewishworldreview.com -- Last week the British Conservative Party, which relied on polls and focus groups rather than a vision of its own, proved the truth of the axiom that the political party that stands for nothing deserves to lose and almost always does. Tories drew just 33 percent of the vote in the British national elections against Tony Blair's "New" Labor Party. The defeat was so crushing that the Tory leader, William Hague, announced he would step down. Blair should not be smug, however. More than 40 percent of the population did not vote, and 35 percent voted against Labor while only 25 percent voted for Blair's party. While Labor will hold an overwhelming parliamentary edge - 413 seats out of 641 - it received the confidence of only 42 percent of those who actually cast ballots. The problem for English Tories is that they are against a lot of things but stand for little. Britain's Conservative Party is an "antithesis" party, and in politics a thesis always beats an antithesis. Since Margaret Thatcher left power, government has grown to consume more than 40 percent of British GDP, and the mentality of government dependency is on the rise again. After four years of Labor Party government, the burden of the English welfare state is beginning to affect people's lives. Unresponsive to consumers, Britain's monopolized and technologically backward public services are frayed and tattered. Blair presided over the decay of public services, but since the Tories articulated no real vibrant market-based alternative to Blair's shabby welfare state, all voters could see in the Tories was a party threatening to take away their public services. Given such a choice, they chose Blair. Compounding Conservatives' woes, Blair cleverly promoted the notion of "harnessing" free markets and entrepreneurial spirits to spur private-sector growth, which he promised to tap to pay for expanded public services. If it sounds too good to be true, it is, but Conservatives were unable to demonstrate the fallacy of his strategy and to gain the voters' confidence. To hear him talk, Blair sounds like a combination of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. When asked recently in an interview if he believed companies could "make too much in profits" or if an individual can "make too much money," he responded as Lincoln did by saying, "No, I don't believe that." And then, echoing Kennedy's "a rising tide lifts all boats," Blair went on, "Surely, the thing to do is to level up the people who don't have opportunities in our societies." The Tory response was timidity in cutting tax rates, budget austerity and all-out myopic opposition to the euro. Conservatives also came down much too hard on issues of immigration and cultural assimilation, which needlessly alienated hard-working Britons of many races, creeds and backgrounds. The Tories were right to express concerns about the dangers of England's being absorbed into a new European mega-welfare-state. English Conservatives hate the idea of replacing the English pound with the euro, the European common currency. The Tories based much of their campaign on that opposition, but they failed to place their opposition within a larger context that offers a positive vision for a new British economic policy based on a sound currency, economic growth, lower tax rates and equality of opportunity. Conservatives could have countered Blair's unworkable idea of England as a "bridge" between Europe and North America with a larger vision that retains English sovereignty within an Anglo-American economic and defense federation - conserving values while progressive in reforming the tax code, the welfare state and the approach to currency stabilization. With 70 percent of the English public uneasy over the euro, this issue could easily have been parlayed into a powerful issue against Labor if the Tories had transformed their antithesis ("reject the euro") into a positive thesis ("make the pound as good as gold"). An Anglo- American trans-Atlantic economic and defense federation offers a positive vision of the future with all the advantages of economic integration based on a common language, culture and tradition, which would protect English freedoms and values against complete assimilation into the more authoritarian and collectivist European tradition. All signs are that Blair will now try to speed up European integration, starting with a long-promised referendum on adopting the euro. In an age when Europe has led the way in growing the modern regulatory state, with eco-taxes, financial controls, curbs on Internet commerce and upward "harmonization" of the tax burden, this has critical consequences for the global economy, not just for British traditions. Blair is a big winner with no place to go except further left. The door is open for reviving the politics of free markets, free trade, economic growth and opportunity, and democratic optimism in Britain. All that's required is leadership. Jack Kemp is co-director of Empower America and Distinguished Fellow of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Comment by clicking here. jewishworldreview.com