I have been proud of the way the Republican Party has stood tall in a stiff wind and tried to block Obamacare. So imagine my chagrin at coming across the following remark from Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas (from National Review's The Corner):
We are here today, at this tragic place in history, because too many Republicans thought they could get cozy with liberal initiatives. America doesn't need two liberal parties; one is more than enough.
Update (3/25/2010): I see that Sen. Cornyn got the message. It's amazing what you can get from a Republican when you watch him constantly and have him cornered.
"There is non-controversial stuff here like the preexisting conditions exclusion and those sorts of things," the Texas Republican said. "Now we are not interested in repealing that. And that is frankly a distraction."
What the GOP will work to repeal, Cornyn explained, are provisions that result in "tax increases on middle class families," language that forced "an increase in the premium costs for people who have insurance now" and the "cuts to Medicare" included in the legislation.So here's my message to Sen. Cornyn: If you are not interested in repealing the entire bill, then I am not interested in voting for an entire Republican, nor am I interested in writing the Republican Party an entire check. The polls show that 58% of Americans oppose this bill. If the GOP can't turn that mandate into anything, then what good are they? I'll stay home on the first Tuesday in November and drink martinis. How's that for a distraction, Sen. Cornyn?
We are here today, at this tragic place in history, because too many Republicans thought they could get cozy with liberal initiatives. America doesn't need two liberal parties; one is more than enough.
Update (3/25/2010): I see that Sen. Cornyn got the message. It's amazing what you can get from a Republican when you watch him constantly and have him cornered.
Posts
17 comments:
Amen, brother. More than this Obamacare train wreck, the November elections are the key. If the congressmen who voted for this nightmare are not thrown out in November (I'll accept a turnover of 70%), then the American people have accepted this nanny state and we get what we deserve. If only a few Democratic seats are lost, the party's over, boys. Turn out the lights. The ships that brought the original settlers here from Europe can come back and pick us up again. The American experiment is over. Mike
Liberal... Conservative... Horseshit! We have but one party here in the USA and it's bought and paid for. Distinctions between the parties are merely media-invented conventions -- cliches -- to keep adherents of one "party," or the other, at the throats of one "party" or the other. It makes for ratings. It sells papers.
The next cliche trotted out is Socialism, which has been rampant in this country since the invention of the internal combustion engine, and probably since someone dug the first brick of coal out of the ground.
The third cliche is to rail against big government. I have news for you, the government is big and big it's going to stay. It's corrupt, too, though that seems to simply be our dirty little secret. Unfortunately, big and corrupt as it is, it is still the only buffer between us and the real thieves. Without it we'd all be working for something less than minimum wage.
The next cliche is voting, and the fairy tale that it is what changes the political landscape. You should stay home a drink martinis in November. That will have the same effect on the outcome as actually stepping into that little tent and proudly pulling levers, punching chits or pushing buttons. You can thank whoever coined -- or should that be conned -- the idiocy that money is free speech, for that. Our elected officials aren't elected by voters, they're elected by contributors. Representative government isn't about ideas, it's about balance sheets.
We just can't seem to get over ourselves long enough to get over ourselves. But, not to worry, just keep driving those wedges. Keep talking, and screaming, about conservatives and liberals and republicans, and democrats, and independents and whatever bill is the train wreck du jour. Have a cup of tea. Turn on Rush, or Keith and have a laugh at the other guy's expense. Yeah. That'll work.
Glad to have hosted your rant, nez.
Sorry, I apologize. I got carried away there! I was so loving the sound of my own words -- I was ranting -- I forgot to say something I think is rather important, and at the same time actually address your post(s).
I could agree if the Republicans had actually stood stiff against the bill on principle instead of attempting to block the bill on purely political grounds. And that's the problem across the board. If you attribute principle to politics, you will always be wrong.
They didn't hunker down against this bill on merit, they rallied against it only to discredit the other party, which, as you have seen in my previous post, I don't even believe exists. The bill, like most, has no merit unless you are among those who paid for it. If you are against it because of that, I'm with you. If you are against it because of that, then that's what you need to say. It isn't about Republicans, or Democrats, or mandates, it's about what's right. The last place to find that isn't in a foolish dialogue with Senator Cornyn, or any other politician. And, as an aside, if you give money to these people then shame on you. Caveat Emptor, my friend.
Posts like yours only perpetuate what has frozen our country in an intractable, heels dug in stance from which nothing ever gets done. It's the black hole of do nothing but get elected politics. It's the politics of obstruction and axe grinding. The politics of carelessness. The politics of cold, hard cash, and it's strangling the life out of our country, which is wheezing quite loudly as we speak.
Party politics isn't what it's cracked up to be. It just another media circus. It isn't even important, or useful, anymore. It's the stone around our necks. Until we can shut up the media and the political hacks, and step back to take a hard, and reasoned, look at what is really happening here, we are merely spinning our wheels and running our mouths while merrily whirling in the vortex of the toilet bowl. And, no one in Washington, D.C., any state capitol, county seat or city hall is going to throw us a lifeline. That's not what they do.
Politics, and the people who adhere to it, no matter what tag you hang on them, is going to be the death of us. It already is. The reasons are so many and so varied that it would take another 2700 page bill to address them.
Senator Cornyn be damned, and the rest of the lot along with him. They aren't the answer, they're the problem. So, yes, I do think you should stay home the first Tuesday of November and drink martinis. Stay out of the game because no matter the outcome, no matter the party in power, you will always be disappointed and finding another throat to go after. There will always be another train wreck of a bill just around the corner. There has to be. That's how this game is played.
> Liberal... Conservative... Horseshit! We have but one party here in the USA and it's bought and paid for...
So it's all a big conspiracy, eh?
> The next cliche trotted out is Socialism, which has been rampant in this country...
Socialism is a cliche, *and* it has been rampant? I would suggest one or the other.
> The third cliche is to rail against big government. I have news for you, the government is big and big it's going to stay.
So we should quit pointing out that it's bad for us because it's winning?
> Unfortunately, big and corrupt as it is, it is still the only buffer between us and the real thieves.
That's true until the government is finally perceived by the general public as the biggest thief. Bad things happen when government loses the consent of the governed.
> The next cliche is voting, and the fairy tale that it is what changes the political landscape.
Well, it certainly changed things since 2008.
> the idiocy that money is free speech, for that.
If someone is not allowed to buy advertising space for a political ad, how is that not a free speech issue?
> We just can't seem to get over ourselves long enough to get over ourselves.
"We" who?
> But, not to worry, just keep driving those wedges.
What are you driving?
> Keep talking, and screaming, about conservatives and liberals and republicans, and democrats, and independents and whatever bill is the train wreck du jour. Have a cup of tea.
For someone who seems to have a low opinion of talking, you do a fair amount of it.
> I could agree if the Republicans had actually stood stiff against the bill on principle instead of attempting to block the bill on purely political grounds. And that's the problem across the board. If you attribute principle to politics, you will always be wrong.
If the Republicans are giving up so quickly on repeal, I can't really refute you on this. In fact, I tend to agree.
> It isn't about Republicans, or Democrats, or mandates, it's about what's right.
Maybe the bill is also about what we can afford. Or can't.
> And, as an aside, if you give money to these people then shame on you.
Sometimes you have to give money to a scoundrel so he will defeat the other scoundrel. Even scoundrels sometimes have their uses.
> Posts like yours only perpetuate what has frozen our country in an intractable, heels dug in stance from which nothing ever gets done.
My view is our society has already done quite a bit. Not all change is for the good. I'm happy to dig in my heels if I think we're heading over a cliff.
> It's the politics of obstruction and axe grinding. The politics of carelessness. The politics of cold, hard cash, and it's strangling the life out of our country, which is wheezing quite loudly as we speak.
And this is the rhetoric of question-begging epithets.
> Stay out of the game because no matter the outcome, no matter the party in power, you will always be disappointed and finding another throat to go after.
So whose throat will you go after next?
Part 1:
You’re right. Perhaps I do go for the throat, too. I apologize for my obvious hypocrisy, and I thank you for calling it to my attention. That doesn’t mean I won’t continue to do things the same way, it just means I won’t inadvertently give the appearance of pretending it’s something else. I’m sorry.
Now I will answer your comments one by one, if you don't mind. I tried to keep them in order. If I missed any I beg your indulgence.
“So it's all a big conspiracy, eh?”
Nah, it’s not a conspiracy. I wish it were, as that would make it all so neat and easy to understand. Then we could simply identify the conspirators, lock them away, and go on about our business. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a wonderfully designed system gone bad. It’s living, breathing proof that politics, money, religion and business have no business being in the same room let alone the same bed together. That’s when bad things DO happen.
“Socialism is a cliche, *and* it has been rampant? I would suggest one or the other.”
I didn’t mean socialism is the cliché. Perhaps that was a poor choice of words on my part. What I meant was the cliché of trotting out socialism as something heretofore unheard of on our shores in order to discredit someone, or something as being socialist. And it’s not a choice of one or the other, because both are true. If you don’t think it’s already here, and has been here for a long time, I have one word for you, oil.
“So we should quit pointing out that it's bad for us because it's winning?”
No, you can point it out all you want, but I would think that one might find a better use of their time with regards to the obvious. It’s like saying cancer is bad. We already know that, but cancer isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, either. And just like cancer, you eventually must find a way to live with it because it is never cured. To that end I firmly believe that railing against big government is a waste of valuable time, at least for now. There are so many other dislikable things about it, that its size is moot. It’s become what we complain about when we don’t know any better, as in, “er… that health care bill? Boy, I don’t know… but hey, the damn government is too big anyway.” It’s the last refuge of people who have no clue. Is it a problem? Damn right it is. Is it fixable? Not in our lifetime.
Part 2:
“That's true until the government is finally perceived by the general public as the biggest thief. Bad things happen when government loses the consent of the governed.”
They’ve already lost the confidence of the general public according to recent polls I’ve read. What of it? Has it, and will it make any difference? And consent? What consent do we have? So long as we show up at the ballot box, that consent is, and will be, implied. As long as we give them our money, that consent is given with it. It wasn't supposed to be that way. But when money becomes free speech, well, what the hell did we expect? You’re right, bad things do happen. That’s politics and you will never remove the bad from politics while the money flows freely.
“Well, it certainly changed things since 2008.”
That’s crap. Nothing has changed except there’s a black democrat in the white house. I have a feeling that galls a lot of people, and that’s too bad, because that’s just another distraction. There’s also a congress that says it’s democratic controlled, which means very little other than it, too, seems to be an awful distraction. So this guy railroaded a bill through congress that you don’t like. Ahem! There’s an echo in here. The only thing that’s different is he didn’t subvert the constitution to do it. Other than that, it’s business as usual. We’re still in several wars that long ago lost their meaning. Banks and Wall Street still go unregulated. Immigration is a mess. Unemployment may someday in the future reach 1930s levels, and yadda, yadda, yadda… And we are still saddled with a government that is static and unresponsive. What’s changed?
“If someone is not allowed to buy advertising space for a political ad, how is that not a free speech issue?”
Buying advertising space, television time, etc., is not the same as handing cash to someone running for office. One is indeed free speech, the other is bribery masked as free speech. When politics is for sale the first thing to be sold is the politician. How much rotting pork do we have to smell before we get this one? Campaign reform… anyone?
“We who?”
Everybody. There’s more than enough blame to go around.
“What are you driving?”
I’m driving a BMW. How about you? And, no, I don’t believe I’m driving wedges in spite of what you think. I’m trying to call attention to what I believe are real, and important issues, and take them from under the cloak of the party line. If that’s a wedge, or wedges, so be it.
“For someone who seems to have a low opinion of talking, you do a fair amount of it.”
I don’t have a low opinion of talk. I do have a low opinion of talk when it misses the point because the talker doesn’t understand what the point is, or chooses to ignore the point by throwing out the old, tired party platform rhetoric instead of an original thought. Our parties’ platforms have been made of the same hackneyed rhetoric for the past 50 years. They may just as well be made of wood as are the heads of those who draft them and profess them endlessly.
“If the Republicans are giving up so quickly on repeal, I can't really refute you on this. In fact, I tend to agree.”
Thank you for your agreement. It’s the truth, repeal notwithstanding. And, you haven’t refuted anything I’ve said other than the throat thing.
Part 3:
“Maybe the bill is also about what we can afford. Or can't.”
You’re right. Maybe we can’t afford the health care bill. Then again maybe we can. Who knows? No one. And I can guarantee we’ll never find out until we actually do. Is that really about the bills merit, or lack of? I don’t think so. It’s about the economics of it, but not the merit. Politically, that’s just a stall, not a reason. Someday you might find you can’t afford that life-saving operation either, but there’s a better than even chance that you’ll have it, on its merits, and worry about paying for it later – even if the surgeon is a socialist.
“Sometimes you have to give money to a scoundrel so he will defeat the other scoundrel. Even scoundrels sometimes have their uses.”
Well, we get back to money again. You have every right to give money to whomever you choose, scoundrel or otherwise. It’s your money. I just don’t think giving it to a political party, or candidate, is a wise investment, hence the Caveat Emptor. Look, if you aren’t giving really big numbers you aren’t going to get your money’s worth. Besides, what we don’t give them they steal anyway. Another negative is it encourages them to be career politicians rather than public servants. We already pay them for that, and we still get little, or no return on our investment. I should think our tax dollars are all the money they be given, and I resent that too. As long as they have our money it will never change. Any elected official who says they were elected by the voters is a liar, or simply delusional. In either case he has no business holding the office he holds and probably shouldn’t be allowed within driving distance of any public office. I might agree with you on the scoundrel thing, after all I kind of liked Huey Long. But then there’s Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Bush the 1st and 2nd, Dick Cheney, and all past chairmen of the Federal Reserve, so I’ll reserve further comment on this.
“My view is our society has already done quite a bit. Not all change is for the good. I'm happy to dig in my heels if I think we're heading over a cliff.”
What have we done lately that’s come from politically motivated action on behalf of the voting public, what we pay for -- leadership -- and not the paying interests? We do good every day. Elected officials? Not so much. I can’t think of one major piece of legislation that took the side of the taxpayer over the special interest since the Civil Rights Act of 1965. Perhaps that doesn’t bother you, but it bothers me. Dig away, but we’re already over the cliff. Dug in heels is no stance to take if you’re keen on getting back to the top of the cliff. In fact, I should think that having one’s heels dug in would be a quite vulnerable stance.
“And this is the rhetoric of question-begging epithets.”
That’s an impressive sentence. I wish I would have said it even though I’d still be uncertain of its meaning. Politics IS the primary reason nothing ever gets done – and especially partisan politics. I didn’t make that up. The politics preached and practiced at the highest, and lowest, levels of government, is a politics of obstruction, which does lead to carelessness with regards to the public they are supposed to serve. And if you think the money has nothing to do with it, then I have no idea what to say to you other than, wow! I wasn’t sloganeering, or begging epithets, I was simply calling it what it is. My wish is that more people would call it that, because that is what it is. Until that happens, I don’t know that anything can be done to change it. I don’t know about you, but I’m not only tired of it, it scares the hell out of me. I don’t vote so my congressman can face down your congressman in a pissing contest, I vote so they will do what I pay them to do. Pissing contests and doing nothing is not what I pay for.
“So whose throat will you go after next?”
The throat of anyone who has drunk the kool aid, and I don’t give a damn which flavor it is.
Apology accepted, though I didn't take offense in the first place.
You and I do not want to see a world in which the United States of America cannot pay its debts. Trust me on this one.
We have to keep pointing out that socialism is bad for us because we are reaching a day of reckoning. The European socialists states are going over the debt rapids, and we are a couple of hundred yards behind them. Things are going to get bad, very bad, when Greece, Spain, and Portugal default on their bonds. Multiply that by twenty, and that's how bad things will get when we do. The problem is spending, and the incentives of the situation guarantee that, unless American rises up and throws these bums out, and finds a new set of bums that will cut spending, we're done for.
It doesn't matter that so much of the money is going to help the poor. I'm approaching retirement age, and I figure I'll never see a penny of social security -- but I'd be better off without social security in a country with a strong economy than without it in a bankrupt country.
Unfortunately, we probably will. We don’t have the political will, or even a whiff of the cohesive effort it would take to accomplish that. Are you ready and willing to abandon your Republicanism in order to accomplish that? If you are, then good for you, but you will be in the minority.
Socialism isn’t bad, Lee, and it isn’t good, and I wish people would stop holding it up as something to scorn or ridicule, because that’s more a fear card and a ploy than actual fact. It’s just another system, as is capitalism.
We spent 60 years, and more money than you or I could count, worrying about those dastardly Russian Socialists and it was money and time wasted. They had capitalism for their well-off and socialism for everyone else. It was a sham. They were broke all the while. We have the opposite, socialism for the well-off and capitalism for everyone else, and we’re broke all the time, too. Neither works as we practice them. If you possess the will, the intelligence, and practice the necessary restraint, any system will work, and it will harm no one. Neither human beings, nor political parties possess those qualities. We were close once, but the horn of plenty came a callin’, and well, that was the end of that story. Maybe our kids will get it right, or our grandkids. There is always hope just over the horizon.
I’m closer to retirement than you, and it isn’t even an option. I don’t fret much about it now. That’s pointless. I just move along. I like what I do. I’ll just keep doing it until they take me away.
> Unfortunately, we probably will. We don’t have the political will, or even a whiff of the cohesive effort it would take to accomplish that.
There are even others who want to discourage even those who do have the political will. Like, e.g, you.
> Are you ready and willing to abandon your Republicanism in order to accomplish that? If you are, then good for you, but you will be in the minority.
I'm a conservative. That doesn't mean I like Republicans. Peggy Noonan calls the Republicans the "creeps" and Democrats the "wackos". Right now, I'd say we're in greater danger from the wackos.
> Socialism isn’t bad, Lee
Why do you say that?
> If you possess the will, the intelligence, and practice the necessary restraint, any system will work, and it will harm no one.
Are you seriously suggesting Soviet Communism never harmed anyone?
> “There are even others who want to discourage even those who do have the political will. Like, e.g, you.”
No, sorry, that’s not my style. You may think I give off that vibe, but you don’t know me. I’m not trying to discourage anything, and I say that knowing that I am discouraged and so are lots of others. I’m all in favor. I want it all to be solved. I want a balanced budget, a solvent economy, a reasonable and manageable amount of debt for us or our grandchildren, and a host of other things. However, I don’t happen to believe within the current political climate any of that is possible. Neither side will go along with the other side’s idea because neither side will ever believe the other side’s idea is better, or even workable. They can’t. They are wearing different badges. That’s party politics – gridlock -- and nothing else. It is the politics of obstruction you have taken me to task for elsewhere on this blog. It may seem a question-begging epithet, even an oversimplification, but I assure you it isn’t. Take a look at what’s happening. This isn’t rocket science.
Part 2:
> “I'm a conservative. That doesn't mean I like Republicans. Peggy Noonan calls the Republicans the "creeps" and Democrats the "wackos". Right now, I'd say we're in greater danger from the wackos.”
The first thing is why do you feel compelled to assign yourself a label? You know, it really doesn’t matter. You know that labeling ourselves causes more problems than it solves, right? If we didn’t wear badges we might even find a way to talk to one another. Imagine what we could do if that happened. I shudder to think.
I don’t care fort the name-calling stuff even if I am guilty of it once in a while. It is meaningless, and it serves no useful purpose, beyond some sort of self-satisfaction I imagine. What does that really mean? Creeps and wackos? Does that define an issue? No. It can become an issue unto itself. Hell, it is an issue unto itself. How silly is that? How productive is that? It might be funny to some, but beyond that, what does it do for us? It’s what people do when they are bereft of ideas, or they don’t know enough about whom they are assigning the name to, to come up with anything of substance.
We aren’t in danger from either side, we’re in danger because there are “sides.” We have made ourselves incapable of recognizing good ideas, and rationally discussing them, simply by virtue of having dug in our heels on both sides of the line, and because we’ve got to wear those little badges to define ourselves. We aren’t in danger from the creeps or wackos because we may think they are creeps, or wackos. However, we are in danger because the creeps and wackos can’t, and won’t, talk to one another with a civil tongue in their heads. This also goes directly to what I said in another post, and your reply to it. You said, “If what I'm saying is meaningless, how can it be dangerous?” Creeps and wackos is meaninglessness. Meaningless is dangerous when it clutters the landscape with unimportant, inconsequential details, or asides as in this case, that can and do obfuscate the facts at hand – the facts that one is trying to get to. Peggy Noonan, by calling whomever, whatever, is no different than the reporter(s) who aggravated you by twisting the facts about the bricks and sandbags incident. It’s merely another obfuscation and misdirection, and, dare I say, another wedge. I’ve been called a creep and a wacko, among other things, and I’m neither. But people who don’t know me might pick up on that and dislike me (the wedge), and never get to know me (the misdirection), as a result of the obfuscation, creep or wacko. That’s unfortunate for both sides, in both cases.
Part 3:
> Socialism isn’t bad, Lee…
> “Why do you say that?”
Because I don’t believe any system is inherently bad in and of itself, or good. It can’t be. It’s just a system. It’s just a theory until someone implements and uses it. We might not like things about it, but that doesn’t make it bad, or good, either. The problem with systems of governance, or economic systems, or any system, isn’t the system, it’s that human beings are corruptible.
> “Are you seriously suggesting Soviet Communism never harmed anyone?”
No. That’s not what I said. I said Capitalism, or Socialism, and maybe -- and I stress maybe – any system (ism), can work if those who practice it do so reasonably, prudently and fairly, and probably a couple of other *lys, too.
The Soviets made a disaster of socialism. It wasn’t the other way around. Yes, lots of people were hurt, starved and murdered, and lots of other terrible things happened. But it wasn’t because of Socialism, it was because of the “socialists” who lead it, drove it, perverted it, and abused it. For that matter, the way we practice capitalism is no shining model of that system either. Millions have been and will continue to be hurt here in the good ol’ USA, too, because of how we practice it. Does that make Capitalism bad? Nope. But, it doesn’t say much about capitalists.
This is precisely what I dislike about trotting out the bogeyman, “Socialism.” Without the distinction, it’s a tactic, not a fact. It’s playing the fear card. It’s cheap politics, which is what we do when we have no facts or ideas with which to make our point. And, to our great misfortune, it is the politics of the day.
> No, sorry, that’s not my style. You may think I give off that vibe, but you don’t know me.
You're right, I don't know you, so I only have your utterances to go by. And you wrote, quote,
> "To that end I firmly believe that railing against big government is a waste of valuable time, at least for now."
> "Is it fixable? Not in our lifetime."
I would call characterize those remarks as 'discouraging'.
> The only thing that’s different is he didn’t subvert the constitution to do it.
The jury is still out on that, I think.
> Banks and Wall Street still go unregulated.
That's just factually not true.
> How much rotting pork do we have to smell before we get this one? Campaign reform… anyone?
I would suggest a different path: less regulation. Companies send lobbyists to Washington because they are so heavily regulated, they feel they need to protect themselves. Bill Gates eschewed hiring lobbyists and playing the game for years, and finally started hiring lobbyists when the Justice Dept. went after him. One of the industries with the fewest lobbyists is veterinarians -- also, one of the least regulated industries in America. There's a correlation between the degree of regulation and the number of lobbyists.
> And, you haven’t refuted anything I’ve said other than the throat thing.
I don't really need to refute anything you've said, since you're much bigger on rhetoric than on evidence. I can tell the difference between an argument and a proposition.
> You’re right. Maybe we can’t afford the health care bill. Then again maybe we can. Who knows? No one.
We can't even afford our current and future obligations on social security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The health care bill adds more fuel to the fire. And I'm pretty certain that if we can't afford it, we can't return it to Congress and demand our money back.
> It’s about the economics of it, but not the merit.
I don't think it can have any merit if we can't afford it. It won't help the poor very much if it bankrupts the U.S.
> That’s an impressive sentence. I wish I would have said it even though I’d still be uncertain of its meaning.
I was pointing out that your argument, such as it was, consists primarily of question-begging epithets. Colorful nouns and adjectives. I.e.,
> > It's the politics of obstruction and axe grinding. The politics of carelessness. The politics of cold, hard cash, and it's strangling the life out of our country, which is wheezing quite loudly as we speak.
There's no argument in there, just a bunch of colorful words. Nothing wrong with colorful words. I use them myself. But they're a garnish. Not the main dish.
> he politics preached and practiced at the highest, and lowest, levels of government, is a politics of obstruction...
What's the matter with obstruction, if you're obstructing bad policy?
> The first thing is why do you feel compelled to assign yourself a label?
Labels help save time. It might take hours of discussion to understand where someone is coming from, and even longer to explain it to someone else. But if I say, "I'm a Christian conservative with libertarian economic leanings who tends to take a dim view of foreign adventures," I can save some time. Labels are horrible at explaining the whole picture, but that's not what they're for.
> Because I don’t believe any system is inherently bad in and of itself, or good. It can’t be. It’s just a system. It’s just a theory until someone implements and uses it. We might not like things about it, but that doesn’t make it bad, or good, either. The problem with systems of governance, or economic systems, or any system, isn’t the system, it’s that human beings are corruptible.
People are indeed corruptible, which is precisely why systems are important. Nobody can be trusted with the power held by such as Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro or Kim. That's why constitutional government is our best hope.
Post a Comment