.ll 72
.fo off
.co on 
.ce ((Editor's comments in double parenthesis - Homer))
 
.ce ADR - 190
.ce
 
.ce Copyright (C) Homer Wilson Smith
.ce Redistribution rights granted for non commercial purposes
 
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Date:         Mon, 05 Jun 89 20:10:35 EDT
From:         Homer 
To:           Disarmament Discussion List ,
              adore-l@ualtavm
In-Reply-To:  Message of Tue, 23 May 89 16:20:02 CDT from 

>
>What is rational or logical (with respect to policy decisions) is
>relative to your perspective.

     What do you mean by irrational and illogical?

     Do you mean 'All dogs are animals, Jane is an animal, therefore
Jane is a dog.'?

     Is this not irrational regardless of viewpoint?  In fact is not
rationality independant of viewpoint which is the whole point of logic?

     Let's say that the viewpoint of the people in the Kremlin
is as follows.

     'If I allow our citizens to freely determine for themselves
what to produce, what to charge for it and who to sell it too then
I will be out of a job and will probably starve to death because I
am a useless son of a bitch and I know it, so I had better keep an iron
hand in place here so that I can seem necessary and continue to have
the peasants feed me under threat of the gun.'

     Is this logical?  Is it SANE?  Is it based on an accurate view
of how to best obtain his own personal survival?  Any criminal must
think clearly when robbing a bank, and he is doing it to survive, but
is it really the most rational, clearly thought out, best solution
to attaining what he really wants in life?  Or are these people
short changing their OWN futures by short changing the futures of others?

     Are we really to believe that the criminal just has different
assumptions, or might we assume that he has burned out a logic
circuit or two in the process.

     The logic of the criminal is usually 'I am an asshole, therefore
everyone else deserves to suffer.'

>I don't believe that the Kremlin is full
>of insane people.

     I do.  Criminally insane.  Their own people would not hate
them so if it were not true.

     The only people more insane are the people who allow it to happen
through their sons in the military.

     Heat always travels from hot to cold.  People always
travel from insane governments to saner.  If you want to measure the
sanity gradient of any country just look at the borders and
notice which way the footsteps are going.

     The Kremlin types are either 100 percent insane and out of
contact with reality, or else they know damn well how much they
are hated and are doing it anyhow because they don't give a damn
about their people but only their own unearned cushy life.

     Any soldier can point a gun, but they often do so in order
to collect taxes to pay them their way.  If you took away their
gun and let them compete in the open market place they would starve
to death.  Better to be a soldier, rip off the people, and live a
higher standard of living than you could PROVIDE FOR YOUSELF in the
free market.

     That is how it often works.  The government can not take power
away from the people.  Only the sons and daughters can GIVE it AWAY
for a better wage than they could earn alone.  The word soldier
comes from the the french word SOLDE which means COIN or PAY.

     Ah, there is such wisdom hidden in the English language, if only
people would see.

 Homer               Disarmament Discuss  6/05/89 No subject