At 02:43 PM 1/29/2004 -0800 Davd Brin wrote:
>Conservatives are even stranger. Ever notice how many
>have pictures of Martin Luther King on their walls
>now? They cooo at Condaleeza Rice and would 99% vote
>for Colin Powell for president. They ARE capable of
>change. They just have two priorities.
>
>1) no MORE change. Keep the reforms of yesteryear..
>but then modify them so that...
>
>2) the top 20,000 frat brothers and golf buddies can
>get richer and richer without providing any goods or
>services.
>
>Fie. These 'movements' are not worthy of 21st century
>minds.
>
>Still, I do know this. The democrats are varied.
>You'll get some bright, some not. But the Goppers
>have driven away all the homosapiens from their upper
>echelons. There are no more Dwight Eisenhowers and
>Barry Goldwaters. It's all frat boys, top to bottom.
I really am stunned at amazed Dr. Brin at how you can continue to give
conservatives such short shrift.
I think the best empirical evidence that falsifies your above conclusions
is to simply compare the number of public policy think tanks on the right
vs. those of the left. Many leftists have recently publicly mourned the
relative lack of ideas from the left compared to those of the right.
Allow me to present a a few brief examples of the sort of ideas being
spawned, developed, and promoted from the "right" at places like Cato,
Heritage, and AEI:
School Vouchers
Military Transformation
Emissions Trading
Medical Savings Accounts
Social Security Privitization
In previous incarnations of this discussion, you have somehow managed to
attribute every idea in the world to the left. But I propose a simple
theorem here: each and every one of the above ideas is supported by more
Congressional Republicans than Congressional Democrats. Moreover,
opposition to each and every one of the above ideas has a center of gravity
planted firmly among left-leaning liberal Democrats.
And yet, where is the left-wing plan for fighting terroism and enhancing
homeland security? Where is the leftist plan for education other than
writing blank checks? Where is the left-wing plan on the environment,
other than ever-more draconian regulation? Where is the left-wing plan
for keeping Medicare and Social Security solvent other than hiking taxes?
If those are the left-wing solutions that you deem worthy of twenty-first
century minds, then I am more than happy to have freed my mind from the
failed solutions of the past.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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