From: tnelson@bellahs.com (Tom Nelson RD)
Subject: Re: What Here!?! (Re: Working for change?)
Organization: Bell Atlantic Healthcare Systems
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 15:58:36 GMT

In article <tvwnbxb.phil@netcom.com> phil@netcom.com (Phil Ronzone) writes:
>In article <1992Sep12.011921.8139@bellahs.com> tnelson@bellahs.com (Tom Nelson RD) writes:
>>>Do you REALLY think that Clinton .vs. Bush is a CHOICE?
>>[YES]
[deleted]
>
>Come on NOW. You admit that the choices are between "fuck it all up as usual"
>and "fuck it up even faster" and you want me to participate in that
>immoral farce???
>
Cynically, but susinctly put.

Phil, look at history, its the way things work.  Society is not immutable.  
It changes around us constantly.  Systems are the same way, they adapt to 
their changing environment (in most cases the society in which they operate).  
When they can no longer adapt they fail.  Its inevitable, so why fight it?  
The goal is to work towards some better system that can move in and fill the 
void left by its predecessor, and hopefully improve in new system where the 
old one was deficient.

What is immoral about change?  You are speaking as though a torpid society 
was something to be worked toward.


>
>>>Get off it. This is a coercive system. It works in secret
[DELETED]
>>There you are right Phil and I agree with you completely on
[DELETED]
>No, what you learned in Kindergarten is to wait and share -- share the whip!
>That's the bloody little secret -- just wait your turn and you too can
>get a taste of holding the whip.
>

At some level laws are required to make the system function smoothly and 
extend its life span beyond a few weeks.  Where there are laws, there is 
coercion.  Laws define what a political system (as an extension of a 
society) will tolerate, and lays down some rules for social interaction.  
Laws(coercion) are also used by a political system to work towards the good 
of the society as a whole.  You may be asked to pay for fixing a pothole in 
a road on the other side of town (through taxes)  you don't use that road 
yourself, but having that road usable is in society's best interest.  You 
may be asked to help fund schools, a well educated populace is in society's 
best interest.  Medicare, a healthy person costs society less than a sick 
one.  AFDC and other welfare, provide a volunteer force who would otherwise 
not be able to fill those positions, as well as labor pool for industry and 
business to draw on when there is a need, both are in society's best interest. 

Our society is in decline and I'm describing an ideal above, so your mileage 
may vary...   but the fact remains that every one in the bay area, California, 
USA, etc. has got to live and work together.  The world is to small for 
feudal city states, those days are long past.


>Me, I want the whip abolished. And you are an absolute idiot to confuse
>the desire to not be coerced with "always get exactly what you want".
>

We are both intelligent people, we wouldn't be posting here if we weren't so 
lets try and keep that in mind during this conversation.  Calling someone 
(in this case me) an "absolute idiot"  is not appropriate and does nothing 
to advance the debate or come to any sort of agreement,  in fact it is rather 
divisive.  In the future please keep a civil keyboard.


>>I don't expect you to think much of me Phil... I don't live
>>my life for your pleasure, so let's leave that whole issue
>>out of it.
>
>Congratulations!!! You almost have it. If you don't live your life for
>my pleasure, then you must live it for your pleasure (the only moral
>and sane choice). Thus, laws that require you to live your life
>for someone else are wrong and immoral.
>

No, laws that require you to take other people into account are implemented 
by a society through a political system to increase its life span and ability 
to survive.  To me, that seems like the sane choice.  To implement the 
politics of exclusion (like is happening up in Oregon right now) is akin to 
social suicide, that is insane.  Morality never even enters the picture.


[DELETED]
>
>-- 
>phil@netcom.com (Phil Ronzone)
>These opinions are MINE, and you can't have 'em!  (But I'll rent 'em cheap ...)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Nelson                                       tnelson@bellahs.com
                                                      tdark@wet.com
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... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, 
my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental.  Any 
resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. 
The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold
them is left as an exercise for the reader.  The question of the 
existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god
coefficient.  (A discussion of non-orthoganl, non-integral polytheism
is beyond the scope of this article.)
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:45524 ca.politics:7802 ba.politics:5330