To: TimF who wrote (229829 ) 4/19/2005 7:15:53 PM From: Road Walker Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1576923 re: There is no contradiction or required shift in opinion between that statement and "The extra spending bothers me less than the extra government control over how resources get used and where investments are maid. Extra government spending is only a part of that larger issue." In both statements (and before either) I have been arguing against increasing government power, esp. power in to new areas, whether such an increase is large or small. You miss the original point, which is that other governments ARE investing, because they don't have our military and foreign war costs. We spend our (federal credit card) money overseas; other countries are spending their revenue building infrastructure and education. They are passing us by. re: Lately you have responded to statements like that by pointing out existing government intervention and then arguing that we already have social engineering. Its true we have a lot of it but that doesn't mean we should have a lot of it, or that increasing it would be a good idea. We have huge government intervention. We have unique taxes, tariffs and credits on food, clothing, gasoline, owning a house, earning money, raising crops, drugs, gasoline, telephone, Internet, dieing, toll roads, getting a passport, getting a drivers license, getting a license plate, taking an airline flight, renting a car, stock ownership, bond ownership, investment property, inheritance, having babies, contributing to charities, buying SUV's, buying Hybrids, installing solar energy... that's off the top of my head. We are anything but libertarian. Some is good, some is bad... but that's my opinion. I'm arguing that we should have taxes that promote gasoline efficiency, and I'll argue that all day. I never supported the argument that we should support broadband. The essence of our difference of opinion is that your support a libertarian view of the federal government... that the free market should make every economic (moral?) decision. My belief is that there are competing interests and our democracy and the rule of law will achieve the the best policy for the good of the citizens. One major difference in our opinions is that mine is realistic and yours is an intellectual fantasy, far removed from current reality. John