>
>
>
> > Hi James,
>
.
> >
> > > I feel a positive moral obligation not to contribute to what I now
> > > regard as tyranny.
>
> > If Obama were looking for cabinet-level advisors, I suspect you'd be a =
smart
> choice as someone who's entirely level-headed and can disagree without =
being
> disagreeable... and of course has a very different viewpoint.
>
> > Would you take the job if offered? :-)
>
> > ---Joel
>
> No. =A0I see an ingenious, almost magical feedback system, a virtuous
> circle of liberty, that has produced the greatest wealth and highest
> standard of living in any people in the history of the world, that has
> lifted so many from poverty and disease and misery.
Which is to say, James Arthur looks at the US through rose-tinted glasses. Other observers note that the US accomodates a very wide range of standards of living, and the poor do a lot worse in the US than they do in the comparable advanced industrial countries of northern Europe, to the point where they aren't fed or educated well enough to be able to make the same contribution to the economy as their richer neighbours.
Properly directed, with the lightest of hands, I see such great things
> that it has done and could yet do.
But nothing involving raising the standard of living of the poor.
He doesn't see it.
Obama does seem to be less interested in making the rich richer than is James Arthur, who does seem to be more one-eyed than most in this area.
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen