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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (79954)	8/24/2008 9:30:10 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 543079

That enough for you? Obviously everyone who has engaged this topic is viewing "disaster" differently from me. I acknowledge all your disasters, really, and am concerned about them, too. But I think there is a quantum difference between them, what I will call ordinary disasters, and what I might call existential disasters to try to make the point, although I recognize that word is a bit strong. I mean disasters such that they would make your list of disasters look like peanuts, make Dale's "misery" look like the good old days. I see the difference as concerning yourself with whether the dress you're wearing to escape a tsunami makes you look fat. I see risk of such an unrecoverable or insurmountable disaster that apparently no one else sees. That does not allow me the luxury of fretting too much about ordinary disasters. It is the mega disaster that I am anxious to avoid and am prepared to take the hit, if necessary, on any of your ordinary disasters to do so. The only sure way I can see of avoiding my insurmountable disasters is to handcuff the leadership, at least handcuff them enough that they can only conjure up enough wherewithal to work on your ordinary disasters. In my mind, expanding the federal welfare state more than at the margins, beyond the truly poor and helpless, is an example of a potential insurmountable disaster long term (and the probability of that coming to pass quite likely given a certain leadership mix). There is enormous difference in scope between, for example, the weight of your "continually weakening dollar" and the weight of universal middle class entitlement programs. I understand that some consider the latter to be not an unrecoverable disaster but actually a desirable thing. That difference of opinion is a given and useless to debate. I am only asserting that I, personally, will not be party to enabling it.