At 09:38 PM 1/29/2004 -0800 Davd Brin wrote:
>I should have known better. Sigh.
>
>I said that left-vs.right is a cosmically stupid way
>for immature political minds to identify themselves...
>and you guys rush right ahead and blare "me right and
>me proud!"
In fairness, after bashing the left-right dichotomy, you then proceeded to
launch into a fairly one-sided rant against conservatives and the
Republican Party, which most people idenify synomously with the political
"right."
For example.....
>But in fact, I do have one 'standard' political
>opinion. That the current GOP is dominated by
>kleptocratic frat boys with NO other agenda but
>stealing 4 TRILLION DOLLARS from our grandchildren.
You should probably amed that statement since most people would not
consider the "current" GOP as going back to the time of Hoover.
Nevertheless, unless you believe that there are conservatives in the
Democratic Party, most people interpret your bashing of the GOP as a
bashing of the political "right" in general.
>You will find NO policy of theirs that violates this
>fundamental principle. Not one.
No Child Left Behind
Faith-Based Initiatives
AIDS Fund
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
Promotion of Abstinence-Based Education
School Vouchers for DC
To just use examples of policies promulgated by the current administration.
>Oooooooooh. School VOUCHERS! Wow! BIG IDEA! Huge!
>How magnificent. Why, it makes all of the following
>ideas pale in comparison.
>
>
>Containing communism
>public universities
>medical research
>exploring space
>exploring the oceans
>saving the bald eagle and other endangered species
>increasing basic literacy from 15% to 95% and college
>attendance from 2% to nearly 50%
>rural electrification
>fiber optics
>opposing fascism and defeating Hitler
>promoting democracy overseas
>antitrust rules to encourage market competition
>supporting Israel
>civil rights
>bringing women into echelons of power
>ensuring that all children go to school
>freedom of information & sunshine laws
>letting citizens view their own credit records
>the Internet
>increasing the number of engineers, doctors and
>scientists 1000 fold
>social security
>reducing or eliminating the lock on power and justice
>that local gentry had in every village, from the dawn
>of civilization
>nuclear power, solar power, modern wind and geothermal
>power
>professionalizing the police
>resisting Japanese imperial ambitions before & during
>WWII
>lifting both our allies & enemies back up after war
>NATO
>
>
>Yup. Those were pretty lame things... because every
>single one of them arose out of Democratic
>administrations.
I hate to say this Dr. Brin, but it at least appears arguable to me that
you are engaging in some "Golden Age" thinking above. All of the above
ideas are at least 10 years old, and most of them are nearly 40 or more
years old. Where are the big ideas from the Democratic Party today? I
presented specific examples of innovative ideas to the central problems of
national defense, health care, pension solvency, education, and air
pollution that are affecting our civilization today. I can say with a
lot of confidence that the central core of the solutions being proferred by
Democrats to the above five problems are simply to spend more money on them
with little-to-no innovation. Even conceding your above list (and I do
find some of the items, like exploring space, to be rather specious - the
Republicans surely would have done the same thing had they been in power)
they so far seem to represent merely a "Golden Age" of the Democratic
Party, and do not seem to contradict my central point that
agree-or-disagree the Republicans are at least coming up with creative
solutions to tackle our fundamental problems, and the Democrats simply want
to tax, spend, and regulate.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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