[Leica] Grossly OT: America WORKS

[msmall at infionline.net (Marc James Small)]

At 10:54 AM 4/18/04 -0700, Liam Maloney wrote:
>OK Allen, I don't normally pay attention to neo-con rants like this, but I
have to ask - in what way exactly do you think the existence of Starbucks
proves that "America works" ? To my mind the outward signs of a country
"working" include a functioning healthcare system, a reliable education
system and a plan to prevent the nation's poorest from falling too deeply
through the cracks. We "aspiring autocrats" in Canada want to know how you
think socialism is a failure. Philosophically flawed bureaucratic
nightmare, perhaps. Failure, no. Please explain.

Well, Liam, there you go.  To most of us in the US, the government has no
business mucking about with healthcare (we have 12 or 13 former Canadian
doctors practicing locally in this area of 240,000 people, who describe
themselves as "refugees from the Canadian Healthcare Mess").  To a lot of
USians, education is a responsibility of the parents, not of the State.
And, to the majority of the US populace, it is quite sad that Gramma
Wheelus is destitute but, in the end, what the fuck do I care about her?
If I cared, I'd give money to the woman.

In other words, most USians, judging by poll results, wish the US Federal
Government to be:

--  isolationist in foreign policy
--  non-interventionist in education
--  leave charity to private charity
--  get government regulations off the back of industry
--  preserve the environment but not when it means folks get fired (an
impossibility, of course)
--  und so weiter.

To solve this, I would suggest the following:

The US should:

a)  leave Iraq immediately and Afghanistan immediately.  The chaos which
will result will give the US thirty years of peace from any organized
resistance by Islamic Fundamentalists.

b)  leave the Middle East in peace.  We should take no posture at all in
the Middle East.  We should no longer provide foreign aid to wealthy
nations such as Israel and Saudi Arabia.  Let these folks stew in their own
juices and let USians worry about how to date that cute girl living on the
next block from them.

c)  eliminate all Federal funding of social programs, including the
Departments of Health and Human Services and the Department of Urban
Development, or whatever they are calling it this week.  Let the Federal
Government quit trying to tell me HOW I should spend my charitable
contributions, as this deprives me of the ability to perform as my God
directs.

d)  Have the Federal Government return the 99% of Federal Land which is
held as some sort of national reserve.  This is absurd:  the states are
perfectly capable of picking the areas that they wish preserved and of
doing so.  The absurdities arising from the current blow-up over the Alaska
National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)  proves this point:  it is a rather dismal
tundra swamp not populated by any species on the Endangered Species List
and, in fact, by almost no terrestrial species.  I recognize that morons
such as Senators Kerry and Kennedy view ANWR as a pristine environment home
to zillions of species who will otherwise die out but, then, this is simply
not the truth.  And to make it worse, the folks on the ground, the Alaska
citizens, roundly resist this detestable extention of Federal power to
limit their employment.  Arizona is 80% Federal land, Nevada is 60% the
same.  This is simply stupid, as it bars the citizens of these states from
enjoying their own natural bounty to their own benefit.  Let us lower YOUR
Federal tax penalty by elminating most of what the Department of
Agriculture and the Department of the Interior are currently doing.  This
would, if nothing else, save millions and millions of dollars annually;
this would give you all something between $300 and $1000 per year in tax
relief.

e)  Adopt HR 25.  Go to http://www.fairtax.org/

READ the entire propsal then consider it in depth.  If you are in favor
(and who could not be in favor of a plan so simple, so slick, so decent),
then those subscribers in the US should PRESSURE their Representatives and
their Senators to adopt this plan.  It is a growing thing:  tell your
Congressman that you will vote Libertarian if he can't add his voice to
this bill.

f)  "Socialism" is a failure as it presumes that humans want to share
ownership of their work entity.  This is bogus.  Most humans want to be
Numero Uno (check out the self-employment rate in the US and Canada for
proof of this).  I previously have advocated on this forum worker ownership
of companies but this now seems unworkable:  there was a Newspaper Company
in the St Louis, Missouri, area, and Weirton Steel, in West Virginia, both
of which sold out to private enterprise at the first solid bid.  I believe
that this stands as a QED.  And government ownership of companies has
failed universally wherever it has been tried:  consider the truths that
Carl Zeiss Jena and Exakta exist no more and that the SPS
(Soviet/Post-Soviet) optical products are now produced by private
companies.   Again, QED.

And, yes, in the end, America works.  

Marc


msmall@infionline.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!