i'd be willing to agree to that, but only as long as i can opt out of paying your social security, your children's college educations, and all the other public works the government does. "the Left" (we're not all one monolithic entity) cannot do this because it lacks the monopoly of power to do so.

as i just said, "the Left" can also try to raise public awareness and lobby congress to change laws. it's democracy in action, and if it threatens you, i'd recommend moving to China where people aren't allowed to express and encourage different opinions about what the government should do.

ah, democracy: the tyranny of the majority.

but the federal government pays for most of the professor's and staff's salaries (including mine - funny, since i'm obivously taxed, that i'm effectively paying myself), not to mention most of the research budgets and academic facilities such as libraries.

also, do you make so much that your children will be inelligable for Stafford loans? the interest subsidy on those is federal tax money as well.



i'm 25, and i have less of a chance of seeing any social security. but it's a myth that social security is "breaking down" in the U.S.; yes, it requires a higher budget every year, but there's also a higher tax base every year to compensate (increasing population + a growing economy most of the time). the myth that it's going to crash is perpetuated indirectly by private investment firms who'll profit by skimming a bit of the interestment returns from you.

also, my point wasn't that we should be allowed to decide which government agencies we pay individually for; i was simply trying to highlight that we already have public service programs in place that we cannot abstain from supporting.



because it's not only about money. it's about the ability to establish these things as entitlements -rights- rather than charities (which are about the virtues of the giver, not the needs of the receiver). there're also issues of public recognition and organization, reliability of funds, and the ability to work in international contexts more easily. there's a common myth that governments are inefficient, and they are. but they're no less efficient than more organizations; it's just that private for-profit organizations tend to measure efficiency against profit, which is quanifiable, whereas governments and NPOs have to measure against vague "results" that can be difficult to document or even see. these other aspects, with respect to government, are what i was referring to when i said 'monopoly of power.'

besides, this is the U.S. of A. is the gov't supposed to be of, by and for the people? so why wouldn't we want to do these things by using governmental power?



proof is a tricky thing. do you think people throughout history had proof that the new things they tried would work? i mean, imagine the first hunter-gatherers. did they have any proof that planting a field of seeds would be able to feed them in the coming year? no, not necessarily (probably the major reason agriculture was probably a very slow and incremental development, despite common misconceptions of a sudden eureka-type change). and we certainly didn't know the Apollo missions would work. yes, i understand that it's a little different than trying a new form of cuisine; this 'experiment' would consume resources from the whole country -- but again, so did the Apollo mission, and all we really got out of the space program was velcro, a couple minor advances in ceramic technologies, and optical CDs (well, that a pride over a country that was able to ship chimps into space - good for them).

boiling it down to money confuses things. let's start with the basics. the world produces more than enough food to feed everyone currently alive. based on this, the law of supply and demand should dictate that everyone can afford to eat, since supply is so high (and no, as fat as we are, American obeseity isn't the reason others starve). part of the problem has to do with distribution.

then there's housing. yes, whoever builds needed houses would need to be paid. resources need to be extracted. there are volunteer organizations that build housing (habitat for humanity), but they're unreliable and receive too little participation to make a permanent qualitative change.

and how about HIV. it's a full-blown plague in Africa, where 25-50% all adults have contracted the virus, and 1 in 5 newborns will probably contract it before or during birth. it's certainly not that male condoms are too expensive; it's a cultural thing. you might ask, why the hell should you give a damn about their cultural problems? compassion is one place to start, and stability of the international economy is a good place to arrive. more saturated public education as well as funding for widely distributed female condoms would certainly have a positive effect, and it could potential reduce the transmission rate to be as low as that of the U.S. or Europe, where strong safe-sex campaigns have made a difference.

but in the end, it's not so much about whether or not it's possible. not for me at least. if enough people come to believe that this is worth doing, we'll find a way to make it happen.

HIV wasn't a problem in Africa until i migrated back to their urban centres from the West. and i don't think many Africans would have rejoiced if that happened to the U.S., but that's just my impression (have had friends from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique). in fact, it would have probably not spread out of the African jungle had it not been for American and European tourism.



well, yes. that was the original idea i was trying to express.



not to presume you're Christian or anything in particular for that matter; this is just as an example, but: isn't heaven a pretty utopic idea, too?

also, i just wanted to say, it's always nice to have a civil exchange that doesn't resort to name calling.

oh yeah, i had more to say about the religion/politics thing, but i was in a rush to not lose all of my post before leaving work: you're spot on!

my spiritual beliefs and political beliefs are inextricably intertwined (try typing that ten times fast). but my political beliefs and my political agenda are different.

agenda: finance reform, fair trade laws, national healthcare, poverty, and civil rights. really, not that extreme; at least, not compared to my political beliefs.

beliefs: abolish private propety and inheritance, end group identity based on ethinicity or nationality or religion, socially evolve to a point where we can govern ourselves... i can't deny it, these are cetainly beleifs. deep down, i'm a good little marxist.

but what's so wrong with that? i mean, politics and religion have always been married at the hip, and even the US's pretense at a separation of church and state is only that, a pretense (one which originated in fact, not as a means to keep religion out of government which is commonly thought, but rather a means to keep government out of religion).

sadly, the historical truth truly is that groups of people only amalgamate into larger groups via conquest or unification at the threat of conquest. we don't like giving up our meager little spheres of power.

and if you don't believe in utopia, you're more like me than it might seem (i mean c'mon, my handle is dystopic). i don't think utopia is possible (we people create most of our own problems, maybe because we need problems in order to grow). nevertheless, i think striving for utopia (on earth) is a cause worthy of my devotion and energy.

finally, the "i've got mine, you've got yours" mentality might not be as divorced from religion as you think; see: Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

yes; i think my point was to say that your beliefs (or what i can make of them, anyway) weren't any more secular in their origin than mine. i'm not raising that point to suggest you should feel distressed about this; we're just conversing, right?



the south went to war to keep their slaves (at least on many levels); were they 'right'? ...i suppose the point of the war was to figure that out.

but i'm not about a foist an argument for why i believe this onto you, unless you literally ask for it.



i shouldn't have left such a vague question. yes, i truly want utopia and know it's not possible. but i don't seek destruction as a form of sour grapes; more precisely, i accept destruction. creation and destruction are both aspects of a larger process of change. and yes, i do want change; but more importantly, i think change is inevitable.

and in fairness, i should apologize. my use of 'dystopic' isn't related to utopia at all. it's more of a "buddhistic" view that the world as-it-is (without human perception) is characterized by (what i can only call) chaos, which humans find insufferable. chaos doesn't even describe it, since chaos is still a part of larger, ordered taxonomies created by human minds.



that was my whole point; this isn't what i want, at least not what i want to do: it's what i believe. i wouldn't try to actually do this to anyone, ever. it's just a naive hope i maintain somewhere in the back of my head, that everyone would somehow sponteneously arrive at what i described. that was my point of calling it a belief rather than an agenda. i value freedom above all else and would never seek to take that away from anyone. is it really any different than the naive hope so many people carry around that they'll be able to "make it big"?

i mean, the way i look at things, if my beliefs were christian, and i sincerely thought that anyone who didn't accept Christ as Lord and savior would spend eternity in hell, but i also believed that people had to arrive at this on their own and therefore required freedom and respect, leading me to leave such people be, would you have any kind of problem with me as a person?

when i was a little boy, my favorite toys were legos. i used to save all my birthday and christmas money for buying legos; at the toystore, i'd daydream about having all those wonderful sets - extra copies of each, in fact, because i prefered creating my own castles and space ships (i mostly wanted the building materials). but i never robbed a toystore, and now that my fantastic desires have changed, i'm not about to rob people of their freedom, right to self-determination, or modica of happiness they've managed to achive.

on a related side note, etymology (word history) is one of my favorite hobbies. the word desire comes from latin. the de- is obvious, and the -sire means stars. the word desire originally meant, "to wait for what the stars will bring; the meaning of 'lust' didn't accrete until the 1300s (ref: WWW Link).

for modern Americans, the difference between wants and desires is only a matter of synonyms. the Romans would have probably viewed most of our wants as ambitions or lusts (depending on the nature of what is wanted), since they're relatively obtainable.

maybe i've got my head in the clouds some of the time, but that's far better than it being in the sand (which isn't an accusation). my desires/beliefs temper my choice of actions, and yes, it's possible that they lead me towards wasting my time on futile effort. for one thing, i've learned peace of mind comes from acting without a "must-have" attachment to the results of your action. but i think that's far better that my desires might lead me to futile action than it would be if a sense of the limits of what's possible channeled my action into a trivial and short-lived set of actions.

i'm not suggesting that "normal" things like raising a family are 'small' or 'meaningless.' actually, quite the opposite. i think the most important human endeavors are, in order of importance: raising children, teaching, and helping the needy. i'm also not saying that it's wrong for people to want things like a dream home or world travel. but i think part of growing into a full person involves dedicating at least some of my life's work to something greater than myself, something that'll do good for everyone.

your mileage may vary.

a friend of mine was raised JW. he's a witch now, and he just got a new harley. i suggested he name is Crowley, and he laughed heartily.