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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tekboy who wrote (3080)	7/11/2001 3:24:52 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12231

Tekuboi-san, worthier than what? Worthier than Thomas Sowell's or worthier than my excellent points? That item you quoted seems like feelgood nonsense to me. The idea that there is civic duty in voting is nuts. If somebody doesn't have a clue about anything, there is no merit in casting a random vote. It achieves zero. There is nothing meritorious in mindless voting. What is meritorious is learning and thinking before voting. If somebody doesn't vote, there is nothing lost. If they have no opinion, why bother expressing it by taking a guess at a candidate's name? That is equating democracy with religion = check your brain at the door and just do as we say. Actually, the USA specifically avoids democracy and doesn't allow voters to elect a president. There is that electoral college stuff to separate the voters from the actual outcome of voting. That's how importantly voting is considered in the constitution; it's not allowed. I am very cynical about patriotism, which is as they say the last refuge of a scoundrel. One should always be very wary of people draping flags or religious cloaks too tightly about themselves - they are usually trying to hide something. They are usually trying to hide the fact that they want to control other people and take their property for their own ends. Before people lose sight of the point I was making, it was that governments [not just the USA but I quoted examples from the USA to demonstrate the point] don't obey their own laws and change them if they feel like it so they CAN do what they like. Usually governments give themselves specific exclusions which others don't have. For example, governments can anytime declare states of emergency. They grant themselves monopoly powers [such as the Post Office, money creation, policing powers such as power of arrest, they ban imports of NZ sheep meat or American rice or whatever they like to avoid competition with their buddies]. My point was not that the USA is imperfect. Surprising though it might be, some Americans know that the USA is not perfect and is not even considered the best place to live by many of them [who have left]. I disgree with the idea that the USA is so buttoned down and cool that newspapers have only trivia to report. It seems more to me like The Truman Show. Children are filled with Ritalin and their parents with Prozac. TV game shows,sitcoms and Oprah provide sufficient soporific effect for most people. The circumscribed life of condominium, freeway, mall and cubicle tames any other potentially wayward primates. Manicured golf courses allow a false feeling of physical activity, albeit mostly on an electric buggy so those vestigial organs called legs don't get too tired. On the fringes, there are a few outbursts, such as teenagers [who haven't yet learned to be tamed] going berserk with a gun. Jails are filled with hordes of those who can't cope with the complexity and Big Brother supervision of the smallest detail of life or who refuse to comply. Tim McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski and others see the trends and respond with mayhem. The trend is common around the world as urban life develops. I like the trend and can cope with it. But it is not at all easy for a lot of people. Drugs, violence and suicide remain common around the world including NZ, Finland, USA. Here is a very frightening quote from that article <..."This vein of disquiet was richly tapped by John McCain when he said on the campaign trail last year that he wanted Americans to serve a cause “greater than themselves." This is a worthy impulse > This is the USSR, Nazi, North Korean, Mao and religious sect mantra. It is asking people to climb on somebody's altar and allow themselves to be sacrficed for the good of what John McCain, Hitler or somebody else wants. I say people should serve their own interests while recognizing the property rights of other people. They should leave other people alone to run their own lives. Mqurice PS: Actually, a lot of countries are very cosmopolitan now. NZ for one.