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 : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. Long who wrote (90538)	4/6/2003 3:22:53 AM
From: paul_philp	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Take away the unspoken premise - we are not responsible for our own choices - and it all becomes mumbo jumbo. No, it becomes tyranny. It's why that style of argument is not neutral. At heart it is tyrannical. Don't respect people's choices, make them victim's, tell them they are victims, teach them that there choices don't matter, use government to decide for them. Of course, tyranny offers no competition to capitalism, all tyranny will collapse, however, it is best to avoid it. The problem is that you can sell it to people if the paranoid fantasy about the 'bad guy' is big enough. It's the old 'throwing rocks through windows to sell alarm systems' con writ very large. Paul

To: D. Long who wrote (90538)	4/6/2003 10:43:12 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

>>I put Sun on ignore when he painted that wonderful cartoon image of the evil capitalistic system forcing its will on the innocent victims of the world.<< Not me. It's a very common world view among intellectuals, all over the world. Especially ones from dictatorial or authoritarian regimes, who have actually watched the elites exploiting the masses and imagine that this is universal. The solution they see, socialism, is something they believe will work. In fact, every democratic country, as far as I can tell, has a mixed capitalist/socialist economy, which vary primarily in the proportions. When Bush talks about "compassionate conservatism," he's talking about the challenge of getting the government out of the business of caring for the poor and the elderly and the insane and the infirm and the infants and the otherwise helpless. Putting grandma on a block of ice and sending her off to drown isn't socially acceptable anymore.