Re: Open source information: new proposal - POLITICS

[Guest guest]

see comments below

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 20:20:15 -0800

Heidi Schuppenhauer <heidis@...> wrote:

>

>>>WASHINGTON - Under a new proposal, the White House would decide

>>>what and when the public would be told about an outbreak of mad

>>>cow disease, an anthrax release, a nuclear plant accident or any

>>>other crisis.

>>

>>

>>another good argument for libertarianism ;-)

>

>Suze:

>

>Somehow I expected that :-p But note this is

>from the people who espouse " small government " .

>Which is one of the reasons I distrust the " small government "

>camp at this point --- this " small government " is

>getting weirder and weirder.

>

>-- Heidi

Well Heidi, you are a very smart lady and perhaps its time for some of

us who have been on the other side to help you make some distinctions,

lest you too are taken in by the rhetoric of " small government " by the

Republicans.

Contrary to what you might think I am not a political conservative, I

want nothing to do with that name, and I defy anyone who tries to put me

in that category. I would find common cause with the anti-war,

anti-imperial Old Right but they are long gone, or more accurately they

have been supplanted by a group of people that Mr. Taft would in no way

recognize. I used to have it in my viral signature but it would do well

to post the article which describes quite well why I am not a

conservative here:

Buckley, Limbaugh, Trotsky, Bush

http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker30.html

But the key word in your post is " espouse. " Yes, the Republicans use the

language of limited gov't and freedom, all the while expanding and

making more intrusive the gov't under the guise of liberty.

It has been this way for a long time. Nearly every major entitlement

program that I can think over the last few administrations (say

beginning with Nixon) has been signed into law by a Republican. This is

not some partisan shot but a matter of record. Check it out, google it

if you will and I think you will see that I am right.

As for Bush Jr. we haven't had a President who was so spend happy since

Lyndon . The only limiting of gov't we have had recently was Bill

Clinton and his role in welfare reform. Sigh...I never thought I would

say it, but the Clinton years seem almost wistful compared to what Bush

Jr. has done to us, especially since 9/11.

So the rhetoric of the Republicans is liberty and small gov't, because

it plays to their base who actually believe in such a thing, but the

reality of the leadership is much different. So I always tell Democrats

stop whining, if its big government you want, you got it with

Bush and most Republican administrations.

Here is a great excerpt decrying the same thing (the last paragraph is

key):

" Now, experience tells us that in practice, Democrats actually spend and

regulate less than the GOP. They are less protectionist and less warlike.

The government grows less when the Democrats are in control. There was a

hint in the 90s, under the influence of Clinton, that the Democrats were

just starting to see this as a virtue and not apologize for it. Indeed,

Gore took steps toward actually criticizing government from time to time.

Amazing.

But that was then and this is now. They are back to publicly conspiring

to increase government control over our lives. They accuse the

Republicans of cutting the budget and the Repubs hit that one out of the

park by pointing out that they expanded more than the Democrats. So on

it goes on issue after issue, enabling hypocritical Republicans and

making idiots of themselves.

The worst of it is that this virtually guarantees another four years of Bush,

which means that we are going to get even more statism than the

Democrats promise, but in the name of liberty and limited government.

This strikes me as the worst of all worlds: *freedom declines in real

time even as freedom itself gets the blame.* How much better to preserve

freedom longer even if in the name of government control. "

So in reality Heidi " this small gov't is getting weirder and weirder " is

nothing new, just perhaps the initiative you mention above has opened

your eyes to it. Don't confuse the belief the of the troops in the field

with those of their elected leaders, because its not the same.

So what is the take away lesson? Well the obvious one is don't trust the

Republicans, what they say and what they do are two different things.

But if that is all you go away with then, IMO, you have sorely missed

the point.

The greater point, IMO, is don't trust politicians period. I'm picking

on the Republicans in this post, but I could have just as well picked on

the Democrats. The difference is by and large I know what I am getting

with a Democrat. With the Republicans I'm getting nothing but smoke and

mirrors.

In the end, if you believe in big gov't, and from what I have read, for

all practical purposes you do, then you have nothing to fear from the

Republicans. Oh you might argue with them over the various details of

how to apply the hammer (such as the issue above), but they *do* believe

in the hammer just as much as you do.

So you have no real reason to distrust *genuine* small gov't types, you

know what you are getting from them, even if you disagree. But rest

assured, the Republican shysters in Washington are no such thing.

Superhero Bush Rescues Marriage

http://tinyurl.com/yvrn6