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Oct. 29, 2005 Welp, here it is, my 100th article for useless-knowledge.com. Now I get that coveted section near the top of the columnists page. For the most part, it's been very enjoyable writing for this website. This is Nuggets 9 – a sort of hodge podge series of mine where I comment about various topics, mostly political it seems. Here is the previous article. Sections are easy to find and start in bold font, scroll to sections that sound interesting. Women Soldiers Your Friend And Mine: Karl Marx The Right Wing Non-lie Balanced News Quotes And a new regular feature called, “The Stock Republican Rebuttal” Women Soldiers As anyone reading many of my columns quickly realizes, I tend to come down on the left side of political fence so often that I'm a regular “leftie”. But when it comes to women in the military I have to agree for the most part with several recent articles the topic. Setting a lower physical-test bar for women is foolish. Maybe it makes too much sense? I think part of the blame comes on those elements that actively fight progress in this country – they are to blame as much as the PC crowd that considers women identical to men in all aspects. It took America much longer than our rich modern friends in the world to reach this progressive state. Other countries, for example, have had women in the very top government positions for many years; we still think it's unique and impressive that a woman would even consider running for such a post. Women make less in the corporate jungle for the same work, and Congress has a rather low percentage of women. We've only had one woman justice on the Supreme Court – the list of examples go on and on. In many ways, we are still struggling with this idea of equality. Lets also not forget that a chunk of the religions that are gaining popularity in this country and in politics actively advocate Biblical roles for women. Women are to submit to men, they aren't to handle money and so forth. This isn't some fringe, loony movement like it should be – this is a growing trend in American religious thought, and works counter to reaching the state that many other countries have reached. I guess I can understand therefore that the women's movement might not want to loose what it considers “ground” on any front, in the same way that the NRA doesn't want to support even the most sensible gun registration/reform ideas. I understand it, but make no mistake, like I said, I think on this particular note, it's foolish on “their” part. Your Friend And Mine: Karl Marx This is a shortened version of an article I had intended as a response to the “Socialism and Candy Bars” piece by Brooks Mick. Brooks didn't agree with my view of slavery. Lets assume that the “total cost of ownership” of slaves was indeed more expensive than real employees as he conjectured – that because slaves work for no incentive, that they produce shoddy product. The argument remains mostly the same – “us” decided that it was immoral to have slaves, even if “foolish” slave-owners preferred them to real employees. We disallowed the Free Market to have what it wanted in this case. After emancipation, the Southern states made handsome profit by selling out chain-gang slave labor; there was obviously some Free Market incentive going on here, and we [eventually] said, “no more”. We already have “socialism” here, in the form of the many examples I listed, everything from telling farmers not to plant, to keeping food costs down, to corporate bailouts. I don't support all of those policies, but I do support some of them, and I support keeping gas prices high. The Free Market cannot fix, nor see, every problem. We don't live to support the sacred Free Market, it exists to service us where and when and how we need it. If we constrain the Free Market in a high-gas price zone, it will do what it always does – efficiently find solutions and that is exactly the point. Brooks may focus on the anti-conservative nature of such a tax, but instead, why not focus on what the hallowed Free Market can do for us once we aim the beast in the right direction? Lets compare this to the Space Race – look at all of the technologies that came forth as a result. The Free Market is not the sole deciding force in America. In the real world, maybe kids shouldn't eat chocolate for breakfast, and maybe we shouldn't stay the course with our oil-based energy policy. The cheap gas prices that we are used too is the chocolate, folks. It's not about getting what we want in a gluttonous or lazy way as Brooks implies with his candy bar analogy, it's about attempting to control a force which has historical precedent for causing evil if left unrestrained. I agree that human nature does best when work is done for incentive, but we should all agree that a Free Market left to its own devices leads to far greater evils than short term stagnation or other perceived (or real) economic effects. Germany certainly has problems to solve right now. The West in general is dealing with something as momentous as the Industrial Revolution – it's called Globalism. Why pick Germany? Lets pick another European power if we want to go that route: Sweden. I've often used Sweden in my columns. It's a good example of a place where liberal policies, high tax rates, and some “central planning” work very well indeed. Sweden is one notch behind us on this index – quite amazing, and near the top of this index - it's a UN index, so Brooks is likely to discount it outright – that's fine. The first index is interesting, it's put out annually by the Wall Street Journal and a conservative US think tank. If I counted right, five European countries are ahead of us on that index, one is tied with us. Not that we can have an entire debate about great nations based solely on stats like this, but this is an Economic Freedom Index. Clearly, there is something to be said for taking pains to educate, insure, and invest in human capital. Sweden adjusts its policy to meet changing needs, rather, it seems too. I'm not nearly an expert on the country by any means, and only give it superficial glances, but they seem to institute what we would call conservative policies when it feels it benefits from them, and vice versa. This is admirable – Sweden does not seem, at least from the outside, caught in this battle that American conservative ideologues wage – you know what I mean folks – take O'Reilly for example. He waves that finger at some of his guests - he calls them “socialists”, as if it's an insulting word. He ignores that he lives in a mixed economy, he ignores that America can be great and moral and just to its own citizens in large part because “us” tends to want the market to work for us, rather than the other way around. Some conservatives can't differentiate that cold war enemy we had, with an economic policy. Sweden doesn't have a one party government. Germany doesn't disallow religious worship. Norway doesn't send political prisoners to gulags. Let me go back to Germany for a moment. First off, can we say for certain that it was “socialist” programs that lead to their current situation? Again, I'm not an expert, but I did attend a seminar shortly after the Wall fell about economic conditions. Germany doubled in size, and had to incorporate into its mixed economy the crumbling Eastern communist-wrecked state. Even with 11% unemployment, many German citizens “enjoy” benefits that many Americans don't. Countries with wider social safety nets are able to weather economic down-swings better than we can. I have no doubt that Germany and other European powers will adjust to Globalism fine in due time. Why wouldn't they? They generally have several things going for them that we do not – things that make us weak at the core and may give them advantages later on as globalism becomes the mainstay: transferable health care, world-class public education systems, strong and non-crumbling infrastructure, highly educated workforces, higher literacy rates, more people with post-secondary education and so on. Finally, their markets are generally already accustomed to high gas prices, which many believe will be the new reality (artificial fixing or not), especially in the long term. We can debate that removing all socialist programs from America will be make it better or worse – I have no problem with that, but we can't ignore that the America that we know and love at this moment is a mixed economy, where some of the ideas oft attributed to Karl Marx are alive and well, and most of us like it that way. The clock-back-turning changes that some conservatives desire aren't solutions – they are old ideas that required fixing in the first place. Mixed economies are one such solution, socialism/communism are other attempts. Is there any nation right now that has a “pure” capitalistic system? Would the average American want to live there? “The empiric evidence is that socialism ultimately fails wherever it’s tried, and democratic capitalism succeeds wherever it’s tried.” Where do democratic mixed economies, such as ours, fit in? What percentage of socialism leads to failure? Could we go as far to the Left as Sweden before we get fat on government chocolate and die? I honestly didn't know much about Karl the person, so I read his WikiPedia entry. He's not at all what I expected. The section on Commodity Fetishsm was pretty interesting. Marx was obviously a wise man with a good understanding of human nature. He agreed, folks, that capitalism is good at generating wealth, but he was also not pleased with how workers seemed to fare in his day. He was dead wrong that capitalist societies would implode and explode, back and forth, like an accordion. In my opinion, he was wrong because he could not foresee the modern mixed economy. It lets capitalism do what it does best, while keeping the less desirable effects at bay. The Right-Wing Non-Lie Here is the Right-wing non-lie for this issue: “I’m sure the Dutch have words for it.” -- Ken Hughes. [picked because I assume the Dutch have a word for pretty much everything that we have a word for] Thank you, and that was the Right-wing non-lie [found with much trouble] for this issue. Balanced “News” In the fine tradition of the Fox “News” Network, here is my own attempt to balance out my local news. If you walk North North East from my house for about half of a mile you find living, non-murdered people. Not so strange a fact, you might think. But Wait! If you walk East of my house for half of a mile, you will also find living, non-murdered, people! A fact our local liberal media “forgets” to mention! As a matter of fact, if you walk South South East, South South West and even West, you will also find living, non-murdered people! Yes, two people have been murdered in the last month about half a mile from my house if you walk roughly North North West. As part of my fair and balanced news, I must of course mention that. But we can't overlook how the media selectively picked certain stories in this case, most likely to portray or convey bias! Op-ed: Those damn sensationalist liberal bastards! Quotes
“Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he
can, but does not want to. ... If he wants to, but
cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want
to, he is wicked. ... If, as they say, God can abolish
evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil
in the world?”
Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC) Greek philosopher Stock Republican Rebuttal I plan on having this section from now on. Actually, this section will stay the same for all foreseeable future issues. No matter what happens in the political landscape, no matter what Bush does – we catch him misleading us about global warming and then firing his own crony non-scientist science censor, for example - there is one rebuttal that the Right will always fall back on. The pinnacle of modern Republican thought, or, so it seems: [But, / So what? Don't forget that / Oh Yeah?! Well / What's far worse is that] Clinton lied about oral sex! ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. This is my second foray into the UK writing discordia. This time around, I want to be a tad more raw - maybe a bit edgier (does that sound "art-see"?) Maybe I'll address even more issues that most Americans consider taboo... About my personal background and life: I was born, I got some education, worked, ate, and had some kids. It seems I like to write – something that was unknown to me until relatively recently...How's that for detail? ;) Like so many these days, I too have a blog! But, I haven't updated it since the day after I signed up for it, so I won't bother to give out the link. Hate mail is welcome unless you are from the Army Of God. Please! It's not that I mind seeing pictures of aborted fetuses in my inbox, but once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all... Email: dahlek65@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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