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Good evening Robert!
Robert Goodman wrote to Lowell C. Savage...
Lowell Savage wrote:
> "Lowell C. Savage" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in part:
>
> >So, apparently, you look at the same situation and decide that it means
> we,
> >as a society, need to "hit bottom" before we can work our way up.
To which, you replied:
> That always presents a problem because, practically, there is no bottom.
> For just about any credible situation, one can imagine still worse.
> Absolute rock bottom would be the extinction of humanity, but there's no
> recovery from that.
Since I answered Lowell on this question earlier, I understood it
to have relative connotations, e.g.: the bottom is the loss of
almost everything that we have taken for granit over time:
relative prosperity, income, property, security, protection of
our rights, and liberty to make individual personal choices.
There is much more, of course, but this is a short list.
"Bottom", in this sense would be the loss of all or most of the
above, and perhaps bottoming out on what we can afford to do on a
global scale with our military, along with a concommittant loss
in 'superpower' status. Of course it's easy to suggest things
could still get worse, but I didn't sense that Lowell wanted to
go there, and I didn't feel compelled to either for the sake of
argument.
I believe that most Americans faced with such a scenario would
find it deplorable and intollerable to deal with; and, most
Americans have never experienced being faced with such a meagre
survival horizon. If things, say in the Philippines, reverted to
this, the people have had a long and recent history of living
without electric power, in relative poverty, and the shock would
not be so devestating as it would be here in America, or anywhere
else in the industrialized western world.
So, there is a 'bottom' I suggest that would spark Americans to
place their loyalties elsewhere, other than government, should
things crumble to such a degree. I believe that over time,
people would find ways to make voluntary choices to do much of
what we have become accustomed to having the government do for
us, or on our own behalf.
Kindest regards,
Frank
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