| The_vagabond7 said: I think a big problem is that people (this isn't directed at anyone in particular, but rather a general statement) think in an either or way. You are either pro-corporate (yay, hard work and ingenuity!) and anti-government (boo, freedom stealing inept bureaucracy!) , or you are pro-government (Yay democracatic for the people rulership!) and anti-corporate (boo greedy seal sweatshop owning fat cats!). Fuck that. They are both terrible things. it's not a question of whether or not too much government can ruin a country. We can look back at history and see that. It's not a question of whether or not corporate entities will corrupt governments, and harm the public for profit, just look outside. It's a question of which will destroy the US first. Because they both will destroy us. Simply saying, boo government. Shrinking them will save us! or saying Boo corporations more regulations are needed to keep them under control! Are naive, ideal driven nonsense. Because you're just trying to pick which group gains power and uses it to ruin the country. The US has been the great experiment from great minds with great philosophies. But now we are seeing the end result of capitalism+democracy. And it's a system that logically self destructs. The person or persons that can come up with the next great experiment will be the ones in the history books in the future. |
China's probably the next laboratory in terms of a new social experiment. They've got a bizarre mix of communism and capitalism that has turned them into the new kid on the block almost overnight. They are skewing democratic in some ways, but the central government exercises a lot of power over the economy. And frankly it is working extremely well. Their economy has been and remains phenomenally strong. Not to mention they've got such a large population they still have room to grow.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
