Why is it we turn to the government to "protect" us from ourselves? If any organization knows the power of transparency, its this one. We know why we want open source software. So we can audit a piece of code any time we want to ensure its doing what we think its doing. If we rely on the government to protect us from evil corporations, why don't we rely on government to protect us from evil software? I know my answer (governments are historically ineffective at everything other than law-enacting and tax spending, but not law enforcing and tax saving). Why don't we push for open accounting practices from our businesses? When we open an account at a bank, why don't we know their investment strategy? Why don't we know how much capital they keep to ensure timely withdrawals? Why do we think the FDIC placard is more valuable than independent third party analysis? The government has shown time and again it can't be trusted with our money or our respect (at least mine), yet we keep turning to it for help. The definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting different outcomes. Doesn't this behavior sound like insanity?

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 3:58 AM, Joshua Zeidner <jjzeidner@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 11:40 PM, Craig White <craigwhite@azapple.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-09-28 at 23:08 -0700, Joshua Zeidner wrote:
>> On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 10:58 PM, Lisa Kachold <lisakachold@obnosis.com> wrote:
>
>> >
>> > But that is a famous Ron Paul quote that can't be backed with fact:  "When
>> > we borrow a billion dollars every day simply to run the government, and when
>> > the Federal Reserve increases the money supply by trillions of dollars in
>> > just 15 years, we hardly can expect our dollars to increase in value."
>>
>>   This isn't some kind of Ron Paul heresy, its based on the real numbers.
>>
>>   I find it surprising that Americans have not pledged their
>> allegiance to this person who has been claiming that this was going to
>> happen all along.  The resistance is typically on Ron Paul's attitude
>> towards particular social issues...  jmz
> ----
> particular social issues are important too

 sure... and a major part of the problem is that our basic cultural
sensibilities have gone haywire.

 what Dr. Paul suggests is not to get govt involved.  Let people pay
for their own lack of vision and judgment.  That allows the wise to
profit and the ignorant to experience evolution first hand.

 -jmz

>
> Ron Paul is a polarizing figure and that totally marginalizes any points
> that he makes.
>
> I think if you look back, you will find this scenario was predicted by
> many on the right and left (Krugman comes to mind) so I have no problem
> dismissing Ron Paul for the kook that he is. I think that the saying is
> that even a broken clock has the right time twice each day.
>
> As for the debt...that's the logical consequences of cutting taxes and
> not cutting expenditures, for fighting wars without raising the revenues
> to fight them and just endlessly printing paper money because they can.
> I don't think we need Ron Paul to point out the wrongfulness of that
> logic...I think McCain understood it when he opposed the Bush tax cuts
> without a reduction in spending but evidently the way to get the
> Republican nomination is to do exactly what he knows intrinsically
> doesn't work. For that (and probably some other reasons), I could never
> vote for McCain.
>
> Craig
>
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--

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." --Albert Einstein

  - http://www.joshuazeidner.com/
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