----- Original Message ----- From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 4:31 PM Subject: Re: Trouble in Europe
> At 12:43 8-4-02 -0500, Dan Minette wrote: > > > If European governments subsidies agriculture (or anything else for that > matter), they just might have a very good reason for it. I'm pretty familiar with the reasons for protectionism and the costs of protectionism. The main reason is that the EU doesn't want to take the short term economic hit that is involved with any change in the economy, even though the long term gain is clear. Our friends from OZ point out quite rightly that the US has protectionist barriers that do more harm than good. Bush was wrong to impose tariffs on steel. But, the EU program is significantly more protectionist than the US's policy. Further, it is money spent to do damage to the world economy. >The US government may not be happy about it, but hey, Europe's first >concern is the European economy, not the US economy. Its interesting that I used the effect on Australia and you turned it into the US. Europe is being hurt too. The only benefit are to the special interests in Europe and to the politicians who get elected pandering to them. Most Europeans, including you, are hurt. > Besides, you cannot simply decide overnight to stop pooring money into > something; making such a decision is a political process that takes months > (if not a few years) and that can have huge negative effects on the people > involved, as well as a huge negative effect on the economy as a whole. To > use JDG's three favourite words, it all comes down to a cost-benefit >analysis. It certainly does. And, I think it is very indicative to see what is considered the greater benefit by the French: the subsidy of inefficient farmers vs. addressing a terror attack on its civilians. > > >Well, citizen voluenteers from the community can also be used. > > True, but you only mentioned *government* in your original post. They >could also hire the services of private security companies, install video > surveillance systems etcetera. In the United States, the president and local leaders used the "bully pulpit"* in order to encourage community involvement in the protection of local mosques. The president used similar words were used to describe perpetrators of such violence were rhetorically associated with those that attacked on 9-11. > > Um, I would argue that providing 24/7 protection for one family is an > operation several orders of magnitude smaller than providing 24/7 > protection for hundreds if not thousands of synagogues throughout Europe. Well, thanks for the complement, but I never meant to imply that Teri's grandfather performed singular duty in the civil rights movement. Many churches and pastors had to be protected. The protection didn't always exist, and when it didn't the authorities had responsibility for what happened. George Wallace, to his credit, repented of his actions and was reelected governor many years later, with the strong support of the black community. All I'm doing is holding Europe to the exact same standards for fighting racism that I hold the US. You keep on saying that I set impossibly high standards. My question is why are the feasible here and impossibly high there? > Further, if the European governments would decide today to offer such > extremely high levels of protection to synagogues, guess what will happen > next. First thing tomorrow morning, the Islamic communities in Europe >would come knocking on the door, demanding equal protecting for their mosques > (there have been several attacks on them as well over the last several > years, so they would actually be justified in their demand). During a terror campaign, it would have been justified. Out of curiosity, do you seriously believe that Hitler didn't have the support of the German people? That there wasn't 1500 years of anti-Semitism in Europe? > > the problem is lack of money and lack of manpower to > provide 24/7 protection, not lack of good will. Why can the US do it and Europe can't? > Or maybe Europe is not as anti-Semitic as it is depicted in US media. From > what I get from US media and US members of this list, Americans are much > quicker than Europeans to call anything negative that is said about Israel > anti-Semitism. Statements like that concerning list members have been repeatedly falsified on list without reply from you. You just repeat the claims. Since you made a generalization, a single counter example can falsify your claim. Why do you stand by it after it has been falsified? <quote from website mentioned in original post> French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin responded to this by saying on radio that it is "extremely difficult" to guarantee security at all places where Jews gather <end quote> I cannot imagine that he would respond to destruction of French schools in such a fashion. It took him a long time to promise to do whatever he could. Why didn't he start out by saying that, instead of referring to anger on all sides? Dan M. *bully pulpit does not mean a pulpit from which to bully people. Rather, it is a statement by Teddy Roosevelt, who used the word bully as a very positive statement as in "well, bully for you." He said that the presidency was a bully place from which to address the nation in order to both inform and persuade the citizens.
