[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

Wow. Could you miss the point even further?? It's like you are standing in front of one of those mall maps that says "The Point is Here" and your looking for it in the map of the basement garage. (Don't force me to bring on the "obtuse"!).

I guess you didn't understand my rhetorical question - "You think anyone will be saying 'If only this were Bangladesh'?" - to mean that, no matter how bad it gets in Oakland, no Oaklandian will be dreaming of a better life in Bangladesh. I also assumed you understood that I think the US is governing itself better than any of the listed countries - since that would be consistent with my previous arguments.

Sorry, I'll spell it out for the rhetorically challanged.

In my humble opinion, flawed though it may be in practice, the United States system of government as set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights (with its federalism and the devolution of power to the vaious states) is far and away the best system for governing large populations. Further, as it is applied today, even with only remnants of the original federalistic system in place, it is - far, far, far and away - the best system currently governing a population of more than 150 million people.



Again, I apologize for the subtle rhetoric. I thought my deep admiration for the Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights was apparent by indicating that, even though they were written by rich white men for rich white men, - over 200 hundred years later- a population of 300 million people with vastly disparate interests and with technological advances beyond the imagination of the Founding Fathers could still find unifying, binding principles that are relevant to them today "by finding inspiration in those timeless founding documents."

But then - I forgot I am talkng to someone who thinks capping a deep sea oil well is like changing a pipe in your house. Sure the principles are the same, it's just that the implementation may require a different level of expertise or specialised equipment.

Actually, your prior simplistic approach to the BP situation is an excellent analogy of the fundamental flaw in your political theory. The practical application of the timeless principles set forth in our brilliant founding documents (Got it? I think they are good!) may differ when they are applied to a population of 300 million people that is the most technologically advanced society the world has ever known and who all have a voice in the government as opposed to their application to a pre-industrial population of 5 million where the government was chosen by a minority of the population all of whom had basically similar interests.

So we let this society grind away, the minions working the daily grind, while the politicos throw away our childrens future on utopian tax and spend policies? Or do we try to bring this country back to the federalist principles that allowed us to prosper. Do we ignore the fact that politicians are doing exactly what Tocqueville said would be the ruin of our society - writing checks that our government has no real backing for. Rome in 100AD looked awful good compared to the barbarians but their society quickly devolved as the populace sat and enjoyed their gladiator contests. But hey we can run around and criticize the government so its ok, actually if you yelled you love the KKK in Oakland you would probably be arrested for inciting a riot. The govt has a huge national security beauracracy that will eventually find a way to secure the internal debate even as it claims to be acting in the interest of security. In the end though there is not enough discontent to overcome the drug of public money and no amount of political discussion is going to overcome that.