From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Aug 04 2003 - 12:46:14 MDT
--- Emlyn O'regan <oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au> wrote:
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> > The major threats to my continued existence/lifestyle are:
> >
> > a) liberal Democrats (not all Democrats)
> > b) statist Republicans (not all Republicans)
> > c) the two party system
> > d) the continued lack of liberty present in the rest of the world,
> > particularly the muslim and communist worlds, which continues to
> > feed the phobias and fears that give strength to statists of both
> > parties and the electoral system they hold hostage.
> > e) continued lack of rationality and intelligence in statist
> > camps that results in such stupidities as the cancelling of the
> > Terror Futures Market.
> > (not necessarily in this order)
>
> I'll probably never agree with the gun ownership stuff, but maybe we
> can chalk this up to cultural differences.
Frankly, a little objective research changes lots of minds from your
side of the pond.
>
> That said, I agree that the actions of our domestic governments under
> the banner of fighting terrorism pose more of a threat than does
> terrorism itself. Although I'm sure they have must have secret
> information to which I am not privy, which would change my mind.
> Otherwise, how could they sleep at night?
That was not my conclusion. My conclusion was that the very REAL
threats and risks of terrorism (and the damage it does, counting in the
thousands of lives and many hundreds of billions of dollars) are a
better insurance for the ruling parties to retain leadership than the
Soviet Union ever was. Who wants to risk voting in some unknown freaky
third party candidate when we have a 'war' to run?
So there is a vested interest in maintaining the sort of conditions
that give rise to anti-US organizations of militant or non-militant
bent, just as the anti-Catholic groups in northern Ireland have a
vested interest in maintaining repression of Catholics that help
recruiting for the IRA, the anti-nuke groups have a vested interest in
fighting against resolution of the nuclear waste issue via either
breeder reactors or long term storage facilities, etc.
Similarly, many other nations ruling parties have a vested interest in
using an anti-US position and anti-US propaganda to maintain their own
grips on power.
Zero-sum games are not yet obsolete, despite the claims of many on this
list. While they don't work well in economics, they are quite fine in
politics, where you can't quantify things so well, so it's much easier
to smoke over an issue with lies and deflection.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/
Pro-tech freedom discussion:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom
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