X-Message-Number: 20711 From: Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 13:01:49 EST Subject: Chastising Yvan properly -Dani --part1_127.1e05ae75.2b3b4c8d_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dani, far be it from me to tell people not to yell at Yvan. But you're not doing it right! To quote from your last post: >You mean, with regards to religion, things like ending child sacrifice, Um, Dani, it was religions that were sacrificing the children. >instituting codes of law and ethics that are the basis of the Declaration of Independance? The Declaration drew on common law and radical philosophy, not on any edicts of any government. The Founders were rebel terrorists at the time. >Or perhaps, when it comes to government, do you mean things like fighting Nazism, Nazism wasn't a big threat until the Western governments gave Hitler the Czech arms factories. Even then, millions of Jews would have escaped, but they were trapped by government anti-immigration laws. Then after the Holocaust began, the West did nothing to stop it. The Western governments "fought Nazism" by installing Communism in Eastern Europe and China. >Communism, It was "democratic" governments that funded the Warsaw pact... read my "Aid To Dependent Dictators: http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/dependent_dictators.htm >Fascism OK, Mussolini was removed... notice that the only places he conquered (Ethiopia and Libya) then received far worse foreign-aid-funded governments that murdered thousands and starved hundreds of thousands. >or today's bane - Islamic terrorism? I don't like Islamic terrorists... but I don't think having the CIA fund them into a stupor is the best way to fight them. >Or perhaps you meant pouring billions of dollars into community projects and welfare? Where did those billions come from, Dani? Taxes on poor working people, perhaps? Do you walk through the welfare areas of town very often? (Actually, I do, but only when walking my wolves). Poor working people in the US pay between 30-40% of their income in various open and hidden taxes, starting with a whopping 15% "Social Security" tax that male blacks, for instance, don't live long enough to collect. Stealing from someone, forcing him to go to deliberately dumbed-down schools, then giving him Food Stamps and branding him as a charity case, does not fall into the Boy Scout definition of "good deed". >Or perhaps you were talking about billionaires like Ted Turner (1 billion dollars given to the UN) The UN is not an unalloyed benefit to mankind (though it's a great rubber-stamp when the US wants to have a phony war with some microscopic non-nuclear power)... and it has the potential to become another layer of government on top of all the rest. Turner did do something good once, but that's another story. >and Bill Gates (millions upon millions given to various charities). I'll concede this one, mostly. Vaccinating people gives them more control over their own lives, not less. Gates does push the only charity that is pure administrative waste (United Way) on his employees, but his own charity is often well done. >What I'm getting at Yvan is that it's not a black and white issue. There are rich who give and rich who don't. There are governments that are run by despots and govts that are run by democrats. There are religions that condone hate and fanatacism and religions that are about brotherly love. That you choose to see the world through a single set of lenses is both sad to me as well as scary. The US government was run by democrats in 1945, when it rounded up 2.5 million Russian ethnics from Western Europe with flamethrower tanks and shipped them to die in Siberia for Stalin's convenience in Operation Keehaul. Your lenses, of course, are multifaceted and more wise than the lowly Yvan's. This may very well be true, but you must show it, not assert it. >I don't want to wake up in a world of individualized intellectual anarchy. I'd much rather have a system in place that, while not purely theocratic, has within it structure theocratic sentiment (much like the U.S. does today). And I would love for you to wake up wherever you want. But leave room in the Solar System for people who don't want to live under your set of laws, and with your childlike trust in the good will of Homeland Security... that goes for everyone, double for me. Now get out there and yell at Yvan some more! --part1_127.1e05ae75.2b3b4c8d_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20711