[Leica] Grossly OT: America WORKS

[Jim at hemenway.com (Jim Hemenway)]

You too Marc... please take this to the Lugforum.  Isn't that why Brian 
created it?

Thank You,

-- 

Jim - http://www.hemenway.com



Marc James Small wrote:

> 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!
> 
>