<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2963" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ted, I must say that I find your argument regarding
the distinction between liberalism and classic socialism to be quite persuasive
and cogently argued. I believe that the label socialist is too often
applied to liberals due to their consistent tendency to turn to the federal
government for solutions rather than the private sector or charitable
institutions. Still, as you and Nick have pointed out fairly, this is not
the dictionary definition of socialism. Perhaps we can all endeavor to
dispense with derogatory characterizations of the views of those with whom we
disagree.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Have a totally cool WEEKEND! -T</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=starbliss@gmail.com href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com">Ted Moffett</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=nickgier@adelphia.net
href="mailto:nickgier@adelphia.net">nickgier@adelphia.net</A> ; <A
title=vision2020@moscow.com href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, November 16, 2006 11:14
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] These are
insults, Sir. Insults I tell You!</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Nick et. al.<BR><BR>What a great reply! <BR><BR>Odd how
the label "socialist" is hurled at those who just want sensible regulation of
capitalism. I keep repeating over and over to those who use the
"socialist" label to denigrate those who want to regulate capitalism to
prevent the worse abuses of the free market, that a strong socialist would
demand nationalizing the oil industry, the auto industry, military industrial
capacity, and so forth. And many Republicans still support "socialist"
programs such as medicare, medicaid, and public schools, even if they
recommend some cut backs, while backing a massive Pentagon budget that reeks
of waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars such as to make a fat cat
statist socialist drool with envy! Halliburton's no bid contracts in the
Iraq war makes this case with no effort at all...Of course this is why many of
the fiscally conservative "true" Republicans have turned on the Bush
administration, seeing how they waste taxpayer dollars like the stereotypical
"tax and spend liberal," though they are doing this by borrowing money from
the Chinese and Japanese, which is perhaps worse in the long run than funding
the Iraq war with domestic taxes, placing the burden of this debt upon future
taxpayers. <BR><BR>A good case could be made that the Pentagon is in part a
massive taxpayer funded "socialist" military enterprise to protect
international resources and markets fueling the multinational corporate/state
capitalist system, "corporate/state" meant to deliberately express the now
common manipulation with massive donations, lobbying, etc. of the federal
government by the most powerful multinationals, who sometimes write their own
legislation that is passed through the US Congress. Witness the
bankruptcy bill, drug benefit bill, and Cheney's energy corporation handouts
in the last few years, all legislation directly written in part by corporate
operatives who can literally buy the influence in Washington to make law in
their favor. <BR><BR>Socialism (i. e. government control of personal private
behavior relating to sexual orientation) in the bedroom is what many of these
faux conservative religious fundamentalists desire, with their obsession with
controlling sexual orientation wasting the governments time and taxpayer
dollars, such as we saw with the ridiculous politically motivation dog and
pony show in the recent US Congressional effort to pass a constitutional
amendment to ban gay marriage. <BR><BR>Ted Moffett<BR><BR>
<DIV><SPAN class=gmail_quote>On 11/17/06, <B class=gmail_sendername><A
href="mailto:nickgier@adelphia.net">nickgier@adelphia.net</A></B> <<A
href="mailto:nickgier@adelphia.net">nickgier@adelphia.net </A>>
wrote:</SPAN>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">Greetings:<BR><BR>I
suppose we can excuse a person who says he is a Christian libertarian (a
contradiction in terms) for confusing liberalism and socialism. A
dictionary defintion of socialism is the state ownership of the means of
production. I don't believe this nor would I bet most American
liberals believe this. <BR><BR>I believe that the free market, with
reasonable regulation, is the best way to distribute goods and
services. Furthermore, free market capitalism has always been a
policy of classical liberalism, to which I happily adhere. See my
essay at <A
href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/liberalism.htm">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/liberalism.htm</A>.<BR><BR>About
three years ago I wrote an essay on Christianity and libertarianism and
posted it on this list. (You can read it at <A
href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/libchristian.htm.">www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/libchristian.htm.</A>) My
conclusion is that you would have to be a really liberal Christian to get
these two beliefs together. Christ Church appears to have lot of
these hybrid creatures, but none of them have bothered to untangle the
logical conundrum that I have presented to them. <BR><BR>Incidentally, this
thread "These are insults, Sir" was not intended for V2020. A
military guy responded to my piece on Veterans Day and I did not notice that
he decided to copy the Vision in his last reply to me. My
apologies for not detecting this. <BR><BR>Nick Gier<BR><BR>Nick
Gier<BR><BR>Nick
Gier<BR><BR>=======================================================<BR>List
services made available by First Step Internet,<BR>serving the communities
of the Palouse since 1994.
<BR>
<A
href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</A><BR> mailto:<A
href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</A><BR>=======================================================<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR>
<P>
<HR>
<P></P>=======================================================<BR> List
services made available by First Step Internet, <BR> serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.
<BR>
http://www.fsr.net
<BR>
mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>=======================================================</BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>