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To: RetiredNow who wrote (62344)	11/7/2002 5:33:19 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 77400

there is a lot of baiting and switching in politics. most of the people on the right are deluded social conservatives or deluded middle class people. the social conservatives are deluded because what drives deep agendas is not the evergreen issues like school prayer and abortion, but rather economic issues. the middle class and upper-middle class people are deluded because they think the right protects their economic interests. in fact, the right only protects the economic interests of the very wealthy. there are not enough of these people to form a dominant party in a democracy, so they have coopted the social conservatives (because the cynical ultrarich do not really care about social issues), and have misled the wannabe rich people (through a well-funded pseudo-intelligentsia on the right) into thinking that their economic interests are served. if you had $100 million to $1 billion and had to live in a representative democracy, and if you could cynically set up a system that would benefit you the most with the least cost, you would be hard pressed to design a system better than America's. among the developed nations, this is surely the best place to become a billionaire. also among the developed nations, this is surely the worst place to make $35,000 a year or less. so, we basically have a system that benefits a very small number of people to the detriment of a very large number of people. if you think this is untrue, ask yourself why 40% of Americans lack health insurance, which should be a basic right in a country that likes to call itself the richest nation in the world. surely there are some middle class patzers, with fresh talking points from some Heritage Foundation op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, who will give you a long lecture on why they don't want to pay more taxes in order to fund national health insurance. some of these patzers may change their tune once they lose their McEngineer job in the Silicon Valley and can't afford their own health coverage. the billionaires are laughing all the way to the bank while the patzers fight their war. the great irony is that you have a lot of deluded nonrich people defending the rights of the super-rich. in fact, defending a system which goes against their own interest. kind of a brave new world, that. of course, like all things, our current system will pass.