Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

Gene:

> 
> I am breathing dirtier air. I am paying more for gas and diesel fuel.

Both of those are choices.  You are breathing dirtier air because of where 
you live.  I'm not (breathing dirtier air, that is) not by my fancy but by 
looking at the actual air quality reports where I live.   By choice and 
design, I 
need to use a motor vehicle now about once a month.  Sure I pay more for gas, 
but if I leave off just one bottle of beer it covers the cost.  Also, you are 
turning one plate of the Rubic's cube without considering the others.  With 
tighter polution laws fewer people would be making as much money and so fewer 
people would be in the market to buy the type of housing you've been selling 
at 
the prices you've been selling them at.  And just how is Bush responsible for 
higher gas prices?  Production is flattening and the world demand is 
increasing 
daily.  Doesn't matter who's president.


 I am 

> paying less in federal income taxes. 


Again, that's a choice.  We're prospering quite nicely now of days and I 
don't pay any income tax at all.  

> >. Tell hungry children they should 
> keep an eye on the horizon

Care to point out some of these hungry children.   Children and adults go 
hungry in this country when there's nothing to unwrap out of a paper sack.  
But 
is there anyone who just can't by any means get beans and rice for the table?

>Most of us will pay greater taxes to pay the 

> interest on the debt.

That's a choice.  Live modestly enough and you don't pay income taxes at all. 
 Live immodestly and why should you be surprised to render unto Caesar the 
things that are Caesar's.

 On the social front, many will spend much time 

> grieving over those killed and maimed as a result of his actions.

Not one person serving in the military is there except by their own choice.  
The agreement to enlist in any form including the National Guard is a clear 
agreement that you will willingly deploy on what ever harebrained scheme the 
commander in chief dreams up, not just the ones you approve of.


> 
> >That dog won't hunt. It has long been established that Medicare is a 
> greater danger to our national economy than Social Security, which, with 
> minor adjustments, can continue indefinitely.


You're whistling past the graveyard again, Gene.   Let me address this in a 
separate post, if you don't mind.

> 
> >You have not told us what you do beyond living a subsistence life.
> 
> Not enough. The many of us attempting to lead responsible lives are a spit 
> spot in the splat sea. 

Yes, we are in the general scheme of things.  But not for our individual 
families and individual communities.

> 
>  We can have an effect through votes, two major kinds. 
> First at the polls, and second, at the buying station. Just buying less 
> does not starve the monster government beast. Buying with discrimination is 
> the key. Buy only products from companies you wish to reward. Boycott those 
> you feel are immoral, unethical, dangerous to people and the environment.
> 

Buying?  Yes.  Votes and polls, no.  Here's the difference, says I.  If you 
boycott a company either by not buying or buying someone else's, it is an 
irrecoverable loss to that company forever.  If for one meal you don't buy a 
Tyson 
chicken and either have rice and beans or buy a chicken from your neighbor, 
small odds wich, that is the opportunity to sell one chicken on that Tyson 
lost 
and cannot in any wise recover.  But votes and polls?  Everytime you sound 
off 
against Bush there is someone, or several someones who are sounding off for 
him or against the candidate of your choice.  They appear out of thin air, 
and 
unlike the customer for a chicken, more can conjured up at any time.  
Consider 
how when Cindy Sheehan set up her protest near Bush's ranch, a larger 
pro-Bush group set up next to her.  Would they have demonstrated at all had 
Sheehan 
not been present?  Votes and polling create their own counter measures and 
unless the thing you are protesting is already an 85%-15% against it in 
public 
sentiment, it is not only an exercise in futility, but you are creating 
support 
for the very thing you are protesting.




> We must vote each day in as many ways as possible. One of my ways is to use 
> the power of the Internet to argue against insane government policies and 
> the insane people who propagate them. If my words ring true, some may vote 
> differently. And that can create change.
> 

It most certainly cannot.  In the case where there is come very clear 
skulduggery going on, such as the infamous Dan Rather memos about Bush, where 
exposure on the  internet prevented the fraud from propogating ... except in 
instances like that, the words of those who support Bush and the status quo 
ring just 
as true in just as many ears as anything you have to say to the contrary.  
You 
are pushing against water.