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. 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. But sometimes there are problems that only govenrment *can* handle. I used to be a member (dues paying!) of the Libertarian Party, but I left that behind because of thei ssue of global climate change. What I saw inside the Libertarian Party was a very interesting dynamic. It is clear that climate change is not something the market can handle in any effective manner. Only government action has any possibility of tackling this problem. Well, Libertarians cannot abide the thought of the government being necessary to solve a problem, so they almost instinctively tunred to embracing all of the climate change denialists. Now, I don't like unnecessary government action (there is a reason *why* I joined that party), but I also have a firm rule that I do not make scientific decisions on ideological bases. So I left the Libertarian party. Later on I recalled the words of one of my best professors from grad school, who pointed out that the issue with Libertarianism is that it is held most strongly by those who would be most likely to prosper in such a system. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." - Dwight D. Eisenhower _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
