[lit-ideas] Re: Hard core ideology
- From: Jack Spratt <dosflounder@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 17:46:43 -0700 (PDT)
It's a wonder you don't call it conservative democracy the way you demonize
liberals. Here's a link for what good citizens legal corporate persons are:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/04/06/90299/exxon-tax/
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/12/us-usa-taxes-corporations-idUSN1249465620080812
You say throw the rascals out. How? Hank Paulson was from Goldman Sachs, and
the rest of government are pedigreed from any corporation you want to name.
The list is so long you couldn't even name all the corporations that have key
positions in either the White House or in and out of that famed revolving door
between government and business. Here's a link and it is in no complete:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Government-industry_revolving_door
The banks were given taxpayer money by the banks, by Hank Paulson formerly of
the most powerful investment bank on Wall Street. The most powerful investment
bank on Wall Street ran the Treasury Department of the United States under
George Bush. As insidious as any of the others is the Koch Brothers funding of
the tea party. A coincidence that the Koch brothers own the highly polluting
paper industry and EPA is being deregulated? And of course there's the
grandaddy of them all, Social Security. The Republicans have had it in for
Social Security since FDR implemented it and they are now beside themselves to
get rid of it and other social programs.
A liberal democracy is about the people and making their lives better. If the
people don't count, where is the democracy?
J.S.
From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 5:05 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Hard core ideology
Jack, in your comments you continue to misunderstand me. I concede that all
language is ambiguous, but there may be another principle at work here. A
couple of books by Harold Bloom come to mind: A Map of Misreading, and The
Anxiety of Influence. A person can become so stifled by his own
presuppositions that he is incapable of reading another person’s writing with
any semblance of objectivity.
I’m not complaining about entitlements as I’ve indicated 2 or 3 times. I am
saying a nation shouldn’t commit to them unless it can afford them. This is
mere common sense. If you bought a house you couldn’t afford I would consider
you foolish. The same principle applies to governments. How is that a rant?
But I do hear a rant against capital and people with capital. Capital is a
fact of all Liberal Democracies. To rail against people with money is futile.
A nation will bail out its major industries if it feels their collapse will
affect the nation’s stability. It is the job of people we vote into office to
do the right thing. If they haven’t, and many of the people in office today
seem in that category, then we should vote them out of office at the earliest
opportunity.
Home owners were given enormous entitlements through the dumbing-down of Fanny
Mae and Freddy Mack. People with inadequate incomes were allowed to purchase
houses that in more sober times they wouldn’t qualify for. You would, I gather
rather give more entitlement money to these unqualified homeowners than keep
major portions of a nation’s capital viable?
You were dismissive of Fukuyama a note or two ago, but no one has proved him
wrong. There is still nothing “out there” to compete with Liberal Democracy.
So who still rails against it? Disgruntled Marxists, Communists and former
Communists, Left-wing Liberals, Islamists and Radical Muslims. I can’t think
of anyone else. Can you? But they would do well to read the Stoics. There is
nothing they can do about it. No one out there can defeat Liberal Democracy.
Only we (speaking for Liberal Democracy) are in a position to do that. If we
spend our money like “a drunken sailor” we may very well accomplish something
our enemies could not. All we have to do to keep Liberal Democracy viable is
to live within our means.
Lawrence
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