06-20-2010, 08:09 PM
Hi,
You believe that's possible. I no longer do. But it doesn't really matter. My emotions are controlled by my intellect. Pictures of starving Colombian children break my heart. But I refuse to send them aid as long as the organizations that distribute that aid don't make birth control their first priority. Otherwise, my contribution would not be to the solution but to the problem.
If we had a society that would allow a person to die because he'd been injured in a motorcycle accident without a helmet unless he had insurance to cover it, then some of what you propose makes sense. If we were, as a society, willing for the bulk of the population to be uneducated, then some of what you propose makes sense. If we were, as a society, willing for the houses and properties of those without fire insurance to burn down unchecked, then some of what you propose makes sense.
The problem with practical politics is that you have to work with the people as they are and not as you wished they were. You have to work with the tools and resources you have, and not some ideal set. Indeed, politics *is* the art of the possible.
--Pete
(06-20-2010, 07:35 PM)kandrathe Wrote: . . . and the result is that people will need to take care of themselves, and each other directly without being forced to do it.
You believe that's possible. I no longer do. But it doesn't really matter. My emotions are controlled by my intellect. Pictures of starving Colombian children break my heart. But I refuse to send them aid as long as the organizations that distribute that aid don't make birth control their first priority. Otherwise, my contribution would not be to the solution but to the problem.
If we had a society that would allow a person to die because he'd been injured in a motorcycle accident without a helmet unless he had insurance to cover it, then some of what you propose makes sense. If we were, as a society, willing for the bulk of the population to be uneducated, then some of what you propose makes sense. If we were, as a society, willing for the houses and properties of those without fire insurance to burn down unchecked, then some of what you propose makes sense.
The problem with practical politics is that you have to work with the people as they are and not as you wished they were. You have to work with the tools and resources you have, and not some ideal set. Indeed, politics *is* the art of the possible.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?