Whoa there "Spanky"! I'm an American but not Stupid.
I never voted, and for what? If you dumb *******s ever thought your measly
little vote ever counted, than I have some really good Ocean-Front property
to sell ya in the Sahara Desert. Money = Power=The Golden Rule. He who has
the gold, makes the rules. Lets just say that "Democracy" will only let you
go as far as those who are in power will let you go. As long as we are good
little sheep, we have favor amongst the Gods. Step out of bounds and
challenge them and gather a following and......Bang, you're dead. Just ask
Jesus. He will give you a pointer or two.


"Luke Kaven" wrote in message
news
"Michael McKelvy" wrote:
"Luke Kaven" wrote
[...]
There are a lot of cultural differences between Europe and the US that
also figure in. European education is typically higher among those
holding only a baccalaureate (an extra year of high school, and
advanced studies in undergraduate curricula). The European philosophy
of education involves more interdisciplinary skills, whereas the
American focus is on in-field competencies. There is a trade-off that
can go either way depending upon the problem at hand.

The American focus has for some time seemed to be in keeping teachers
from
doing their job, namely imparting knowledge. Things like whole language
reading should not have taken 10 years to get rid of as it did in
California. That's ten years worth of students, most of whom could not
read
at grade level.

It isn't much better at the undergraduate and post-graduate level
either.

[...]
[...] The GOP (still not my party) is more inclined
to leave people free to earn a living and raise themselves up through
hard
work. The Democrats, knowingly or not, (I suspect knowingly unless
they
really are stupid) work against that.

In both schemes, there are social structures required to provide for
needs. The major avowed difference between the parties is in the
difference between governmental structures (Democrats) and
non-governmental structures (Republicans). Again, a mix of both is
valuable.

I'm not so sure beyond those of protecting the rights of individuals.

Sometimes, as inefficient as the government is, it is the best place
to locate certain programs, because whatever faults the government has
in administering said programs, they are accountable in a way that
private industry rarely is, at least in the present scheme of things.

Private industry has to provide good product and service or it goes tits
up.
Government service has no such threat over its head.

There are a couple of specious assumptions in what you say here that
are not backed up by research in the social sciences. The assumption
that industry serves the needs of its consumers is only a contingent
matter of fact, and while it is often a factor, it is by far not the
only factor, and it is not always the most important factor.
Corporations serve themselves first and foremost, and they will do
what they have to do to further their self-interests. They have a
life all of their own without any regard necessarily for anyone's
well-being except their own. Providing a good product is only a part
of that. Monopolies, political affiliations and sweetheart deals, are
often what drive corporate dominance in the marketplace.

I will not offer government agencies as a cure for this. I can
acknowledge many of the pitfalls you would no doubt cite. It is only
my assertion that there are reasons to have the government do some
things, and reasons to have private industry do some things. And
really, there is more continuity between the two things than one might
expect. We'd really have to discuss this in the context of a specific
set of functions though.

I'll give you an example. The Republicans would like to privatize a
number of civil service jobs. But this has some very serious
problems. For one, there is nothing to prevent the Republicans from
farming out government work to private industry which is de facto
controlled by the Republican party, and which works tirelessly to
further the aims of that party, and which siphons government funds
into the service of that party's interests.

Don't farm it out at all, let people who want it done hire private firms
to
do it.

Okay, I guess this is the Libertarian viewpoint.

Career civil servants, by
and large, should not be permanently controlled by the interests of
the private sector.

Then get rid of those departments

Again in the context of a specific case is where I'd consider it. In
general, there is much to hate about both ways. I don't think you'd
want to suggest that we should dismantle national defense, and let
wars be fought on a profit-loss basis by whoever feels like paying for
it. Where would you draw the line? [Funny that the right-wing
doesn't think nationalized defense is socialism.]

Another example -- I would not like to see the government fund
religious charity, because there is similar potential for abuse.
Right now, the government funds a religious organization that teaches
abstinence from premarital sex.

But it does not force people to participate in the programs. There are
choices and those are some of them. They get the funding because their
programs work.

Or they get funding because they further the ambitions of the party in
power. Teaching abstinence while conspicuously not teaching safe sex
in the prevention of AIDS is an unrealistic dogma that does not
prevent AIDS. The most damaging flaw in your argument, as above, is
the assumption that these organizations exist to serve their clients
and that their success is measured by how "good" they are at doing
that. This is as I say only a contingent matter of fact. Serving the
investors is often the predominant factor. And serving the interests
of those who could otherwise do you great harm is also sometimes a
predominant factor. The only thing a corporation cares about is its
own survival, often no matter what the cost. The idea of serving the
good of anything else is theory that is long gone in research circles.

You might actually be interested to know some of the ground floor
concepts in altruism and social behavior. These are the assumptions
on which your notion of libertarianism rests, and the research might
tell you some things that would differ from your current views. Who
knows, you might be able to formulate a better libertarianism.

The one thing I think you said that oversimplified was that Democrats
work against leaving people free to earn a living and raise themselves
up through hard work. Anyone is always free to do that!

Government makes it harder through the way they tax and regulate
business,
taking money away that could be used for investment.

True (and ultimately, as a small business owner, I will feel that
too). But I would not look to the wealthy to make decisions on
solving the problems of the impoverished. I can't think of a group
that would be more out of touch with those problems.

if the Government hadn't taken to funding AIDS research, which they did
much
too late I might add, it would have taken much longer for private
industry to ever take up the slack at the cost of many lives.

I disagree, I think if government were less intrusive and less
confiscatory,
it's likely that things would move faster.

In this case, you disagree, but I was there as a research associate in
a well-known AIDS research laboratory. This deserves a topic of its
own. Because from what I've seen, if research depended upon showing a
return on investment, then we would have let millions more die. As I
said before...serving the interests of the customers is not the
purpose of a corporation. Under perfect knowledge conditions, things
might be otherwise. But the market exploits ignorance.

In the
end, a number of private initiatives were seeded thanks to research
originally funded by the government. Also, I think government funding
for the arts is something the Republicans do not appreciate well
enough, because they view the arts as ranging from spurious to
subversive relative to their own causes.

They, like me do not appreciate it becuase it always leads to things that
are questionable in taste, and to funding people whose work has nmo real
market appeal. If people wish to pursue art, let them do it at their own
expense.

For the price of one bomber, it would be possible to seed quite a
number of efforts, many of which would result in self-sufficient
enterprises and gainful employment for many. I would not trust
private corporations to be the arbiters of artistic taste. I
certainly would not trust them to decide on the basis of artistic
value, which is intangible and wholly different than cash value. As
far as questionable tastes, you will always have that in any context.

In general, I do not look to
the captains of industry to be good at anything other than their
primary endeavors, and I would not trust them to act in the public
good when and where needed.

If it were not for private industry many things would have considerably
less
funding than they do. Many like Wal-Mart give genrouisly to a variety of
charities.

Of course I did not say to eliminate corporate giving. I would not
bet my life on them however.

[...]
Better in my mind would be a synthesis of ideas that in the
end would (I surmise) not resemble very strongly either of the
current
parties. We are young in the history of human affairs, and we have
much to learn.

It already exists. The Libertarians. They have this funny idea that
the
Constitution means something . Naturally, they will never gain power.

There are about a hundred version of Libertarianism, many of which are
pretty far-right in their implication.

I'm speaking of the Libertarian Party. They seem prety constant.

Point me to some docs, and I'll study them for a bit.

In the end, society still
needs pretty much the same sorts of social structures in order to
survive. The main differences, again, have to do with where those
structures are located, whether inside or outside the government. In
my mind, I'm not sure anyone's interests are served by favoring one
over the other in all circumstances. Each case requires special
consideration.

Which is best left to the individuals

I'm saying that individuals are always embedded in a multiplicity of
social groups, which influence their choices and behavior. You are
really deferring to these groups as much as to the individuals in
question. Maybe you can make an improved libertarianism out of that,
but either way, it needs to be understood. [Any version of
libertarianism (or any political philosophy) one espouses depends is
underwritten by social and psychological theory (tacitly or
otherwise), and has to be responsive to the truth or falsity of such
theory.]

[...]
Diplomacy is not a
strong suit for Bush. Bush's strong suit is playing to his base, and,
with Rove as architect, waging a merciless disinformation campaign on
his opposition, which is what makes the party so strong.

Compared with whaty I've seen about the Democrats on factcheck and
spinsanity, Rove is an amateur.

[We're both
aware of things Rove has done with whisper campaigns, things that make
Lee A****er look like a choir boy.] Somewhere, though, there is a
Belief Bubble that makes it all go, and like the tech bubble, it may
burst at some point.

Check the 2 places I mentioned and see if you still think so.

I'm not immune to correction. But note that I live in what the Bush
administration derisively calls the "reality based community". By
their own admission, they do not. Taking stock of Rove's past
history, there isn't much to respect about the man's ethics.

Luke