From: peercy@crhc.uiuc.edu (Mike Peercy)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Perot speaks
Date: 13 Apr 92 06:15:09 GMT
Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
NNTP-Posting-Host: dopey.crhc.uiuc.edu

emmett@kpc.com (Emmett Kilgariff) writes:

| peercy@crhc.uiuc.edu (Mike Peercy) writes:

| 	Actually, many people have suggested on the net that he's another
| Hitler, in actuality, his plans, currently are so vague, he reminds me
| of Bush in 1988.

Yep.

It's true, though:  I haven't read all the posts entitled "*Perot*" in
this group, so maybe someone did call him Hitler.  Methinks one must at
least have a thing against some genetic class of people, if not proposals
to ship them to Madagascar, before he receives the Hitler brand.

| >Mike said:
| >The man talks entirely in metaphor and allegory; and that is very scary,
| >for it calls for action for the sake of action.  And some of the stories
| >he's telling have no solution other than terribly unconstitutional and
| >otherwise rights-abrogating actions.

I must admit, when lined up against Clinton and Bush on known policies,
Perot wins hands-down.  But that's because the other bozos are so damn
incompetent.  However, Perot is mostly unknown; and he is so very evasive
on straight questions that we know very little of his policies.  Perot
is the opposite of Tsongas.  He _is_ Santa Claus.  And I think even Santa
has to pull a few rights out from under our feet to do what Perot says
"needs to be done."

I suppose I ground much of this on what he says with respect to crime.
Most liberals fear the abrogation of rights coming via abortion or
speech.  I think they're wrong:  the path will be through drugs, guns,
and "crime".  And Perot sounds like the guy who may--thoughtlessly and
for the sake of the "shareholding majority" of voters--go where even
Bush, Bennett, and Martinez fear to tread.

But, along with his misconceptions about foreign trade and investment,
I also fear his "industrial policy".  He says that "we've" got to do
this and "we've" got to do that.  The only mechanisms for "us" to do any
of the things he suggests will make Teddy Roosevelt's fondest dreams of
industrial detente seem like laissez faire.

Don't get me wrong.  I don't think Perot's a bad person.  It simply sounds
like he'd try to "go through the engineering process" with things that
_cannot_ be engineered.  Social engineering doesn't work, and it results
in a loss of rights and an increase of pain for all but the engineers.

But if this were after election "reforms" got passed, and elections were
publicly financed with people needing a bizillion signatures to even be
considered a candidate--so there'd be no LP candidate, no Andre Marrou--,
and if voting were required, then I'd probably vote for Perot over Bush
and Clinton.

At least he has a brain; and at least he recognizes some problems, if
not the solutions.

| >It scares me that this suddenly gives you a one-voiced media, with that
| >voice being the government.  Imagine a nation where the _USA Today_ was
| >not only the paper-of-record, but was the primary source of news and
| >political opinion for the populace.

| It scares me that this idea, which, so far, has been described in one
| paragraph, is being extrapolated to the worst possible implementation.
| Granted, there's a great opportunity, if the National Town Hall is 
| implemented poorly, it would be a propaganda weapon. Hell, a little
| fraud in the vote getting, and the government get  whatever results it
| wants. But if implemented correclty, and this would require alot of 
| work,  and laws as strict as voting laws, it could be a fanstastic 
| improvement over the current system.

I do not think so.  Not one bit.  The New England Town Hall principle
is a democratic form superior to republican rule for one and only one
reason:  every voter can hear _every_ other voter's voice.  This is
patently impossible in a nationwide system.  The dozen voices (moderated
by Mr. Perot) who get air time outweigh the common voter by a ratio of
some 20 million to 1.  There is no way the referendum, poll, straw poll,
or unscientific call-in can possibly be an accurate reflection of the
truth, or even of the true wishes of an informed electorate.

| 	By the way, why doesn't anybody ever speculate about fraud
|  in polling data?

Fair question.  I think the reason is the wide ranges of control over the
machines, observers at the stations, etc., as well as a comfy feeling
people have about not having a case of fraud in a while.

| >Oh.  That's nice.  The people who watch "Perot at 6" and then vote at 7.
| >That's what's saving us from involuntary servitude to the government?

| 	Strange, I work from January to May in involuntary servitude to
| the government. After that, my taxes are paid off. The compulsory service
| idea is similar to Clinton's, but taken to a further extreme.

Hey, I'm not going to be a voice in support of taxation, or even
government.  But at least nowadays you get to choose the form of your
compulsory service.

Mike				"Oh, no.  I'm really a good man.  I'm just
                                 a bad wizard." -- The Wizard of Oz
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