>From past behavior, it does not seem wise to expect politicians to be unselfish and to make altruistic decisions to help people. Indeed, the dramatic failure of large centrally planned economies has demonstrated that it is not wise to even expect politicians to know how to keep mundane things in a large system running smoothly.
It seems odd to conclude that the way to get other people to behave as one thinks they should behave is to coerce them at gunpoint unless they spend their money as the intellectual elite tell them to. That does not sound much like a respectful community to me. In fact, America was founded by people who resented just that sort of treatment, and felt that they had a right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". These people were deeply distrustful of any strong central government, and wrote the Constitution to limit government power. _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
