Re: columbia -- what really happened
(sigh) We're drifting farther and farther off-topic here, but what the
hell...
Brooks R. Robinson wrote:
> | How the US can justify spending so much money on Space while 33 million US
> | citizens live below the poverty line amazes me.
Actually, the answer to this one is quite simple. There are lots of
things in the world that are worth doing. Trying to help the poor is
one. Exploring space is another. You can't run a society by focusing all
resources on the one thing that somebody thinks is most important, and
neglecting all the others.
Furthermore, I seem to recall reading somewhere that the economic
definition of "poverty" is simply the standard of living of the poorest
15% of the people. Given that the USA has more than 200 million people,
this implies that 30 million or so of those people are "in poverty" BY
DEFINITION, no matter what their standard of living is actually like.
Also consider that the standard of living of most poor people in the USA
is better in many ways than the standard of living of _most_people_ just
a century ago. Those that aren't actually living in the streets
typically have running water, electricity, and at least some access to
modern medical care by way of free clinics, if not employer-provided
health insurance. They aren't well-off compared to the average citizen,
but the typical "poor" person in the USA is bloody rich compared to the
average citizen of many other countries.
> The ideology of capitalism puts people with money into power.
No, money is one form of power. The rich always have more influence than
the poor. This is as true in communist countries as it is anywhere else.
The difference is that in communist countries, one becomes rich by
playing the Communist Party game well rather than by doing anything
worthwhile, like manipulating the stock market, cheating the elderly out
of their life savings, or raping third-world countries (sorry, my
cynicism is showing).
> Benevolent as they may want to be, power corrupts, and they are
> corrupted by power.
Power can be corruptive, but I don't think most politicians need power
to become corrupt. They usually started out pretty corrupt. This applies
as much to the Maxine Waters/Barbara Boxer liberals as to the Henry
Hyde/Trent Lott conservatives. If you think _any_ politician, from the
far left through the center to the far right, has your best interests at
heart, you're a fool. People who want political power are almost always
the last people who should actually have it.
> From this point of view, the impoverished only have themselves to
> blame. The impoverished should go get jobs or an education, then jobs.
I _almost_ agree with this. People start out in widely varying
circumstances; some come from rich families and have all sorts of
privileges available to them, while others are impoverished and lacking
opportunities, and most are somewhere between those extremes. I am in
favor of effective programs, both government-funded and otherwise, that
make opportunities available to those who lack them. Given such
programs, if you remain poor and uneducated, it's not for lack of
opportunity, but lack of the initiative and/or persistence to do
something with those opportunities, or some other basic life problem
that prevents you from functioning in society. However, the kinds of
programs I would like to see aren't necessarily available today,
certainly not everywhere, and where they do exist, they aren't always
run well and aren't necessarily targeting the people who really need
them.
Of course, from the kind of far-left perspective you seem to be coming
from, such programs would be a disaster, because they would lead the
poor into becoming just another bunch of aspiring capitalists, not the
kind of proletarian revolutionaries you seem to want. Having poor people
join the capitalist middle class does not in any way lead to a socialist
worker's paradise. So as a good little leftist, you ought to be against
anything that would improve the lot of the poor in a capitalist country,
because the more miserable and downtrodden they are, the more likely
they'll join the revolution.
Oddly enough, that explains quite a lot about the policies favored by
the typical leftist...
Craig
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