On 02/09/2008, at 2:41 PM, John Williams wrote: > My impression is that this list has an ongoing debate between > religous people, > with faith in their gods, and government people, with faith in their > politicians.
I'm neither of those. I'm not sure how long you've been lurking, but this List is far more dimensional than that. Recently some voices have been louder, but there is a genuine breadth of opinion here (of course, most of it's wrong, but they'll agree with me one day ;) ) > > Personally, I put my faith in evolution, both biological and > economical. I don't. Evolution exists, but I hope we can rise above mere evolution, and direct ourselves rather than being shunted about by the harsh mistress of selectional forces and mere survivability being the criterion for our future. > Humans > are fallible, and politicians are human. Putting greater > responsibility (power, > expectations, etc.) in the hands of politicians means that their > failures will be > greater disasters. Better to keep government as small as possible, > not put our > politicians on a pedestal, and instead rely on ourselves and > competition of ideas > in a marketplace to determine solutions to problems. Partially agree. By "small government", I think we need more participatory government. We need rules and regulations to make an even playing field for business, employment, education and opportunity, but we don't need government interference in our personal lives. Not putting our politicians on a pedestal is a good thing, 'cause people are people. > If the "gene-pool" of ideas > is sufficiently diverse, then natural-selection in a free-market > will find better > solutions to problems than millions of politicians ever could. If > the gene-pool is > not sufficiently diverse, then perhaps there is a role for > government to encourage > greater vitality and diversity through policy. But any approach that > relies on > politicians to design an efficient system is doomed to failure. Yes - regulations should be about putting a brake on waste and environmental damage, unethical practices and exploitation. Beyond that, they should be as minimal as possible (and that means minimal subsidies and tarriffs too). Charlie. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
