Vo, I'll get to what I have say after this agreement with Ed and Jed (Ed and Jed, huh, got a nice ring to it):-
Only 20% are defaulting on their mortgages. Now applying real-politik, regardless of what one may think about subsiding bums, brothers and latinos (as you may see them) the GOP would have more profitably subsidised this group with an interest holiday and part payment of capital for a period of say 4 years by loan and secured that end of the vote spectrum. It's got to be cheaper than bailing out the whole bank sector. To me it's a no brainer. Now what I wish to say is this: The Enlightenment came in the late 1600s and is responsible for 300 years of sudden innovation in the sciences, economics, arts, social sciences and law. (Much pre-enlightenment thought came from the Greek, Roman and British society from 800-1600AD (the most powerful nation in the world has English common law)). The main barrier to the common man seeking life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was feudal or church or superstition. The aristocrats or shrieking church always would carry on about their divine right, or that the sky was falling in and you wouldn't get to heaven unless you went through the auspices of one of God's chosen. The benighted superstitious went from one crisis to the next (black death, plague, wars) beaten down by fear and self-loathing. Logical thought and its expression in the real world science taught us: That facts mattered over faith, you find out by experience and thought not by mediation or God That humans are the same, differences being expressed in DNA That there was nothing special about the Earth and the laws of the universe ran here, there and everywhere. God was not 'ours' nor did he/it care. That you survive by thought That technology, short of overwhelming sudden catastrophe, would overcome any difficulty. We are an adaptive clever species. This sidelined the old feudalists. Advanced well educated people's of European decent (and others too now) are able to see this. They approach their problems in a rational adult way and realise that the solution comes by logical thought and then carrying out those actions. Modern universal suffrage has brought the uneducated, hysterical and superstitious into the voting demographic much to the delight of the old feudalists. Every opportunity the feudalists have, global warming, war, famine, market melt-down is an opportunity to appeal to the voting base's lack of reason and seize more power. I stress as men (and women) of science that we should, for the sake of freedom, be telling them that life is full of trials but brain power overcomes. We adapt. Were it not for the Enlightenment you would be in slavery leading short, miserable lives. Don't trust the feudalists left or right who play to your fears and realise how far we've come by seizing control of our condition and mastering the environment for the good of our lot. This credit crunch and global warming are prime examples. We just need to adapt and change the rules. Crisis, what crisis?
