X-Message-Number: 28111
From: 
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 00:16:30 EDT
Subject: Re: CryoNet #28092 - #28104

In a message dated 6/24/2006 5:56:35 AM Mountain Standard Time,  
 writes:

> The  US is not a democracy but a constitutional republic for exactly this
>  reason.

>>

Exactly  what reason? It isn't clear what point you are  addressing.

__I am addressing your point here, that in a democracy people decide how  our 
economics works out.

The  idea  of democracy is that people have a part in
making informed  decisions  regarding how our economics works out
between us. No  regulation means no  democracy means no protection -
protection which  the poor and the  environment need.
I'm aware that the U.S. is not a "typically" democratic system -  which
is part of the problem in America: it is not democratic enough.  This
much is obvious from the fact that so many Presidents come  from
political dynasties.
 
___ This is a fault with democracies, that the electorate may make wrong  
decisions.  Dynasties occur because people recognize names.


> It has been observed that a democracy lasts exactly as long as  it  takes
> the bottom 51% to figure out they can vote to steal the  wealth of the top
> 49%.

Are you referring to historical events?  I've never heard of such a
thing happening. I suppose you are invoking the  libertarian bogey-man
of TAX.


__This is a common old  truism; I am not sure of the origin.  But  it is an 
obvious problem.
> With the exception of fossil fuels, the  depletion of natural resources is a
> foolish idea of people with a poor  grasp of science.

Well, animal extinction is scientifically validated.  Hell, or you need
do is know how to count. 3 species of tiger were wiped out  in the 20th
century - are these tigers now merely "misplaced?"


---Animal species are not "natural resources".  Natural resources are  things 
like ores, fresh water etc.
> Everything we have ever   consumed is
> still in place or in a garbage dump.

The definition  of pollution is that of an element which is out of
place. Petrol in your car  is not pollution, petrol in your food is.
Simply saying that we've just  shuffled things around, that certain
chemical changes are irrelevant, is  hopelessly naive and not
scientific.
 
__The stuff is still there and could be mined at reasonable cost.  The  
aluminum foil, steel, wood, paper, even food (archeologists dig in dumps to  

analyze the lifestyles of the 1950's and find sausages that dogs can still  
eat.), 
all are still there. There is little deterioration and few chemical  changes; 
it's an anerobic environment.

> So natural
> resources  do not get "depleted", only rearranged.

I cut down 99 trees in a wood of  100 trees. I burn the wood. Was the
wood depleted (along with soil erosion,  ecosystem destruction, loss of
wild-life, etc.), or is it still around,  floating in the ash (along
with the soil and dead animals)?
 
__ Note that I said "with the exception of fosssile fuels." Fuels are  things 
we burn, and of course that depletes them. 
 
But then few people in the West burn wood anyway, and besides wood is a  crop 
like wheat.  I cut down the wheat and eat it, Oh horrors! By the way,  there 
is more standing timber in the USA than in 1850, because so many poor New  
England farms have gone back to nature.

> As for  mining,  remember that
> beneath our feet are 4000 miles of ore, mainly iron  and  aluminum and 
silicon.

As for energy, remember we have a big  nuclear explosion we're floating 
around.
So what!? Until we actually use  these resources in ways which doesn't
give us cancer, it doesn't  matter.
 
___ Nuclear energy is infinitely less cancer-promoting, if it causes cancer  
at all, that the old ways of burning wood and coal.  My Scottish ancestors  

had so little material to burn that they built huts without chimneys to keep all
 that good warm smoke inside.  And then died of lung diseases (cancer  

included) by about 40 years of age.  Infinitesimal increases in radiation  from

nuclear power do nothing at all.  The Rocky Mountain states get more  radiation

than elsewhere due to being a mile high and having less atmospheric  protection,
yet have lower cancer rates than elsewhere.

> As  for
> pollution, in the West it was decreased ten  or a hundred times  since 1960,

You haven't been reading my exchange with John K  Aubergine.

As for communists being big polluters - here, here.  Their
technological dreams were often even more stupid and rapine than  the
capitalists. Now let's bury Bush with Stalin.

> While I am  aghast at the actions of Bush and company, and see examples of
> wretched  excess on the part of rich and poor

How can the poor be involved in  excess? By definition they have no
excess. I suppose you are referring to the  lazy, unemployed
under-class that live in the bad part of your town rather  than the
homeless and starving millions?


___ The poor are frequently wasteful.  A cocaine addict will soon be  poor 

even if he starts rich.  I see healthy young beggars every day, with  their hand
out for money for "food" while a cigarrette dangles from their  mouth.
 
> I
> also see the progress of China since they adopted  capitalistic practices.

Aided by flagrent disregarding for human rights.  But at least they're
better to trade with now!


__ I thought we were talking of rich and poor here.  The Chinese have  
adopted good practices and increased their wealth.
> I
> hear that they are very happy and have an optimistic view of  their  future.

Did they send you a postcard? "We the 1.3 billion Chinese people  wish
you were here. We are expecting the Singularity like you are, and  we
all now have an iPod"
 
__A friend who visited there remarked on their happiness and optimism as a  
wonderful thing, and it is frequently in the news.

> It is not a bad  thing when a billion people go from literal  starvation to 
a
> happy  prosperity, and I think Anthony's attitude is too   pessimistic.

Perhaps. I'm certainly not keen to "go easy" on the status  quo when it
has so many brave guardsmen, here on Cryonet.

> Note  that
> the "inequitable" distribution of wealth was the fault of  the  Chinese for
> following the insanity of the "Great Leap Forward," and now  that  they are
> adopting capitalism they are getting their fair  share.  Is there a  moral 
here?

Where you think I am too  pessimistic about capitalism, I think you are
too optimistic about it. China  suffers many problems, not least the
rich-poor gap, terrible pollution,  possibly an over-heating economy.
Over half of mainland China's large  state-owned enterprises are
inefficient and reporting losses.


__I didn't say they had Utopia, but that their wealth had increased greatly  
and that the previous "Inequitable distribution of wealth" was primarily their 
 own fault. Which they have largely corrected. The same is true of the 
Africans  and others who practice other systems than honest capitalism -- they 
should  change from corruption and kleptocracy.

Still, that is not to say their circumstances won't improve more.  The
move to privatisation seems to have helped some people over all.  To
reiterate - capitalism is not Satan - problems arise when power  and
wealth become increasingly centralised, and when the pursuit of  wealth
becomes more important than reality, than human rights, than  the
environment that supports it all. A "green capitalism" is possible  and
desirable.
 
__IN Taiwan they first adopted capitalism without real democracy.   Once 

there was enough money to educate everyone, they demanded and got more  
democracy, 
and they could afford pollution controls.  Much the same with  South Korea. 
I'd like to see everything happen at once, but it appears that  wealth-first 
works pretty well.

> Yes
> -- capitalism brings  prosperity and a people's future  is in their own 
hands.

For some.  For others it brings total misery and abject poverty - which
could be altered  for the better with a few hefty cheques. Or is it not
possible to spend all  this extra wealth you laud on these problems?
 
__ Would you want to be on the dole in North Korea or Zimbabwe, where the  
system is so bad that even hard workers starve? When you have enough for  

yourself you start to give to the poor because you empathise  with them. I know 
of 
no *abject* poverty in the US -- one can always be fed  at a homeless shelter 
and usually get a bed there. And our very poor people are  normally that way 
only through their own doing.  They prefer to beg and use  the money for drink 

and drugs instead of food and shelter. If they had a few  hefty checks it would
probably kill them because they would overdose. For those  who actually 

cannot work, there are welfare or Social Security payments of $500-  1000/ 
month, 
which is far from abject poverty.  I lived on less as a  student and did not 
feel I was in poverty.

> It is not America's fault  that Africa is  kleptocratic and poor and other
> places are  feudalistic and sad.

I do not believe you have a very thorough grasp of  history. Start with
how Chris Columbus treated the Haitian natives and go  from there,
through slavery and colonialism in Africa and other parts of  the
world, and back to today's massive illegitimate debts and  repressive
international laws. Then ask whether America might shoulder a  little
blame.




___Columbus worked for the King of Spain and has nothing to do with the  USA. 
The USA was not involved in African colonialism, nor in African slavery  

although we did buy slaves there two centuries ago. Elsewhere we  dabbled, only 
a 
little and usually benevolently, in colonialism, so  places like Puerto Rico 

now vote to continue to be territories of the USA  -- we can't get rid of them.
 The "illigitimate" debts are legitimate all  right -- we stupidly leant the 
money.  Of course you now want us to lend --  or is it just give -- much more. 
You must have forgotten how we were told those  loans would make the 

borrowers prosperous, and how they would be paid  back.  Generally the foreign 
aid we 
gave, and the loans, were just spent by  corrupt governments. (An exception is 
European war-recovery funds.)
 
Look at Zimbabwe when it was run by capitalistic principles (granted as a  
colony or run by whites.)  It was prosperous, a bread basket of  Africa.  It 

neither got nor needed American aid. Liberals said it was ready  for self rule.
It got self rule in the form  of Mobutu.  He  insanely drove out the only 

productive farmers and robbed everyone else. Now  large parts of the population 
are 
dying of starvation and the remains of the  economy are fast collapsing. Is 
the problem soil errosion,  repressive  international laws, or is it the 
system?  *Was* Zimbabwe -- and most of  Africa -- ready for self rule? Being a 

liberal means never acknowledging you  were wrong, and always blaming the US and
always demanding more foreign aid.  Zimbabwe needs a new government and its 

plight is its own fault, not mine. Now  ask whether you liberals might shoulder 
a 
whole lot of the blame.
 
Sorry to be so grumpy, but there is a liberalism that reads only its own  
propaganda and never questions its own assumptions.  Yes, the USA does bad  
things, especially recently under Bush, but it is not responsible for slavery  

under Christopher Columbus or all the other injustices ever suffered by the  
world.
 
Alan
 
 


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