[78-L] One person's opinions...?!^

[Chris Zwarg]

At 05:20 22.01.2009, you wrote:
>Someone who understands and respects economic principles would be my choice.
>I see little of that in the current administration and heard none during the
>campaign or since. The past administration had some pretensions to economic
>sanity but abandoned it all too frequently in what I considered to be a
>foolish "liberal outreach" program.
>
>I consider as totally ridiculous the assertion that someone "to the right"
>would impose mass slaughter on poor folks. Economically, the best thing to
>do about poor folks is leave them alone and create for them and all citizens
>the same freedom and opportunity to pursue their own livelihood and
>happiness. "Spreading wealth around" does not make poor people wealthier, it
>always makes them poorer. I could go into lengthy economic explanation about
>that but this is not the place for it. However, George Bernard Shaw wrote "A
>government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of
>Paul." The economic truth which is a corollary to Shaw's observation is that
>the government that robs Peter to pay Paul de-motivates Peter to produce
>goods and services that Paul could use, the production of which, if produced
>at all, would also create a job for Paul.
>
>The madman you refer to as Herr Zwarg's apparent hero would better be
>categorized as a leftist, BTW.
>
>Did George Bernard Shaw record anything during the 78 era? I seldom rely on
>Shaw due to his socialist leaning; I find socialism to be the bane of a
>society which aims to optimize the productivity of its resources. But he hit
>the nail on the head with that quote. Even a liberal can't be wrong ALL the
>time...

Thanks, Mark - you seem to be the only one here who understands my point. I have never been a socialist, neither of the National (Hitlerian) nor the Communist (Stalinist) variety, and your quasi-libertarian approach (which you put in succinct words much better than I could ever hope to do) pleases me mightily. The cliché of Nazis being "right-wing radicals" I feel is one of the tragic mistakes in history; apart from their grossly over-the-top Nationalism, there's little difference between them and the Communists, neither in goals (overturning and eradicating everything "bourgeois" and aristocratic, in favour of a rule of the Great Unwashed) nor methods.

Mr. Barr is badly mistaken who my "hero" is; I must think hard to find one anyway (as I see little merit in hero worshipping), but if you insist I might refer to Richard Dawkins among the living, and Bertrand Russell, Thomas A. Edison, Charles Darwin and Oscar Wilde among the dead. No politicians among them, sorry.

OTOH, replying to the various requests for apologies for my alleged racist remarks about the new US president, I am sorry I cannot give them exactly as requested, as they consisted merely of a one-word description of his teint derived from the Latin word for "black", probably common ever since the first English-speaker laid eyes on a dark-skinned human being many centuries ago; greater minds than my own may explain what is offensive in describing an easily visible quality except in the world of Orwellian "Newspeak". I agree however I should have used the Standard English (as per Collins' dictionary) "negro" rather than the US dialect or slang variant, and I do apologize for that lapse in correct style. 

You will know that today's Jews still call themselves "Juden" when the use the German language, despite this being the very word Mr. Schicklgruber and his cronies used in their murderous campaigns against them, *simply because it is the only correct word in the language*. The curious term "Afro-American" certainly does not make much sense except in current terms of censorship; "Afro-Americans" logically are the inhabitants of a continent or nation "Afro-America" which I am sorry to say I cannot find on any map, and apart from that, as a merely geographical term, it says nothing about ethnicity - any descendant of a Boer now living in the USA is obviously an "Afro-American" technically, although his outward appearance might well be paler than that of most of us here, and I doubt whether he would be pleased with the appellation. Many people who do not have any traceable ancestors in Africa (hailing from other tropical parts of the world) now are easily misnomed in "correct" usage. Sorry but I do not see the moral difference between describing the outward appearance (negro/black/colored) and - often incorrectly - inferring ethnicity/descendance from it (Afro-...).

May the US of A prosper and become a better place to live in during the upcoming four years, no matter under whose presidency - what the man looks like and where his ancestors came from certainly plays the smallest part in that (or one hopes so at least). To me, a man whose only credit and only claim to fame so far is his (for his current position) novel skin color, and who chooses to spend millions at a time of economic depression to have himself feted before actually achieving anything for his country, does not bode well however, and I'm sticking to that, though hoping to be proved wrong by the actual course of events.

Now let's get back to 78s; as you will have noticed I have been ignoring the various attempts merely to provoke me again (unlike Mark Chester's well-reasoned contribution which I am currently answering), and have set my spam filter to immediately delete any mail containing the new President's or a certain old dictator's name. This is my last word on this unfortunate OT matter which I - like so many others - would not like to see again here. Sorry for wasting your and my time.

Chris Zwarg