X-Message-Number: 20711
From: 
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 13:01:49 EST
Subject: Chastising Yvan properly  -Dani

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  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! 

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