Re: Man, Mr. bush Jr. sure is wicked evil eh?

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
   "Bill Hobba" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> jmfbahciv wrote:
>> My apologies, Bill.  I didn't intend to stop your discussion flow.
>> It's very interesting and happens to coincide with my latest mess
>> prevention project :-).
>
>No appologies required.  I already have learnt a lot by seeing others 
views
>on this interesting topic - although it is off physics.

The topic may not be technically physics, but if we don't clean up
this mess, there won't be any physics knowledge to talk about, nor will
there be newsgroups.

>
>Mat Merron (correctly in my opinon) wrote:
>> >Economic rationalism is what you get when you reject ideologies and
>> >base your decisions on what produces economic results.  Unfortunately,
>> >people fight the notoin tooth and nail, so conversion take many, many
>> >years.
>>
>
>jmfbahciv wrote:
>> There was a show on TV last night (PBS) that claimed the fall
>> of Greek civilization, namely, Athens, took a long time to do
>> this.  According to the show, their last futile attempt at
>> ensuring their ideology was to sentence Aristotle to death
>> because he'ld been teaching facts of economic life.  Somehow,
>> it appeared that he was made into a martyr after the fact.
>> Is the USA the Spartus for Islam?
>
>I do not think so.  In the end, one way or another, terrorism 
>will be wiped out.  It will take time, a lot of effort, and 
>probably more suffering than I care to contemplate.  But the 
>message of history is clear.  The only system
>that works is democratic capitalism.  Countries that refuse to embrace it
>will be at an economic disadvantage to countries that do.  For example the
>Taliban rule was simply not sustainable eg how can 
>you compete economically when you dictate that 50% of 
>your population (the women) can't participate
>in it? 

As long as the majority of the world works within an economic
rationalism, they would have managed.

> .. As time goes by they will simply be left behind by countries that
>are more realistic.  And that IMHO is the root cause of it all.  Modern
>western civilization, by gradually concentrating on economic 
>efficiency and its benefits, has surpassed the Islamic world.  
>I have no doubt that
>consciously or subconsciously they realize that and if they do not change
>they will become increasingly marginalized.  However changing the culture
>and beliefs of centuries is no easy task - it is no wonder they resent the
>west - if it was not for them they would be able to continue to hold their
>cherished beliefs.

"They" don't resent the West.  Imams are losing control as people
learn to make economic decisions for themselves.   In the
beginning, women not only played a role in society, they worked.
Go out into the fields of any Islamic country that doesn't import
100% of their foodstuffs.  You'll see women working.

This zealotry is a middle-class phenomena.  Look at our middle
class.  I don't see much difference in the bitching or the
behaviour.

 
>Mat Meorron said
>> >That's a belief which is currently held by a large part of the western
>> >population (especially a vast majority of the so called
>> >"intelligentsia").
>>
>
>jmfbahciv wrote:
>> That's because there's no immediate gratification of power
>> acquisition in it.  That's because such thinking is productive.
>> The heavens forbid that ordinary people do useful work without
>> regulation wrapping for free.
>
>Having entered into discourse with modern intelligencer (I did a course in
>philosophy a few years ago now and have contact with them 
>at work) when you
>bring up the pragmatic points that I do I was labeled materialistic.

So was I.  My immediate answer was that I need to eat.  And note that,
in my younger days, I was also considered to be an original hippie.

> ..  They
>simply have a different way of viewing things.  For 
>example one greenie, who
>found out I worked for the police at one time, 
>called me the enemy.  I asked
>why she thought the police were the enemy?  She said it was because they
>stopped her from protesting. 

Police were an enemy at one point.  There were a lot of nasty 
incidents that started in the South, got spread by McCarthyism
and culminated into the Nam era.


> .. I explained they were just enforcing the law,
>it is the laws she should object to.  However she seemed 
>to require someone she could immediately point to as the 
>cause of her troubles - and the police
>were handy (actually I suspect a lot of greenies are like 
>that - 

So were the wannbe hippies.  I was unpopular with them because
I chose to work the system against itself rather than whing
about it.  Few people understood what I was doing.  About
10 years later, of all the ones who had understood back then,
only one continued to understand. 

> ...they really
>long for a simpler life where things were not as complicated).

Which they never ever, ever experienced.  Neither did their
parents.  All of the simpler life bullshit is a fairy tale.
People say back in the good old days when...I don't remember
them being good; I remember them sucking.  

/BAH

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