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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jerome who wrote (52410)	9/17/2001 11:08:43 PM
From: Gottfried	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Jerome, re >the war on terrorism will be much more difficult, expensive, and prolonged.< There's a big difference: the war on drugs fails because there are too many customers who demand drugs. Gottfried

To: Jerome who wrote (52410)	9/18/2001 7:34:54 AM
From: daryll40	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Jerome, your point about the war on drugs is interesting. Frankly, I suspect that we'll have to acknowledge that THAT war we have lost. While I am a conservative "law and order" kinda guy at heart, I think the libertarians are right on this issue. Let's decriminalize drugs and tax the hell out of them. Also, I think this new threat will force us to recognize other issues that we've been in denial about. Like means testing Social Security. I don't think that is fair, but I do think that this is what is coming "in the national emergency interest". Now that the "lockbox" is being raided, we'll have to admit that there was never a lockbox in the first place and just pay current beneficiaries out of the consolidated budget. THe national emergency is the only political way to welch on the social security promise that we all knew would happen anyway. Also, all this talk about yet more entitlements (prescription coverage for seniors, for one) will have to cease. And I suspect that much of the not-yet-implemented Bush tax cut, like taxes on estates over $X, will be rescinded, just to make it look "fair". It's a whole new political debate in America.