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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

>I am with you on that and I see no indication that Obama is not, also.  
I see him as wanting everyone to have the opportunity to become one of  
the rich. 

Actually, I'll give you one better than that.  I did a lot of Obama reading 
during all this.  A lot.  He let slip a couple of time what I think he really 
understands.  It isn't that we all have an opportunity to be rich, he 
recognizes that there aren't enough resurces in the world for us all to even 
be as rich 
as we are now.  He really caught my ear the times this came up.  He did not 
pursue it, he did not elaborate on it.  If he had, it is unlikely he'd have 
been elected.

But is is significant that by all indications he understands it.


>Yes, opportunity will require some government program and,  

> yes, it will cost something. We will not know for some time the  
> specifics of his programs nor now well they work to their desired end.
> >


Here's where our philosophies diverge, and our interpretations of the facts 
and phenomena.  What government needs to do is get out of the way of people's 
opportunties.  That's the thing we haven't yet tried.  We have tried the 
government induced "opportunities" and they just flat don't work.  In fact 
they most 
often produce the opposite than intended affect.  

>>  Under Bush,  
> we have been moving toward a stratified class system, more at the top  
> of the pile, fewer in the middle, more at the bottom. I don't think  
> you liked that any more than I did.


Oh, you don't know how I have cursed that whole sorry scheme of things entire 
and for the very reasons you mention.  I don't aspire to be wealthy.  But 
enduring the past decade or more of false wealth has been a trial.  Toward 
the 
end of this administration it just seems to get worse and worse.




>> James, you really should be a lyricist. Really. Lovely poetics but  
> more romantic than realistic.

Ah, don't count it out just yet.  One can often say in poetry what one durst 
not in sober prose.  As you have said, Obama is not verbose on details.  But, 
young man that he is, he did not fall off the turnip truck yesterday.  He has 
written quite a bit and embraces Black Liberation Theology, tenets of 
Marxism, 
and is quite unabashed about wealth redistribution.  He was quite clear that 
he felt the failure of the Civil Rights Movement was that it did not change 
the Constitution to go beyond the "negative liberties" of defining what the 
government could NOT do and begin to list what it is obligated to do.

This is the 'left hand' punch to which I alluded.  If Obama is not planning 
on continuing along those lines, he will be dumping 30 years of his 
statements 
and writings and sentiments as a superfluous load and starting over from 
scratch.  THAT is unrealistic.



> 
> >Imagine, for one insane moment, what could be accomplished if we had a  
> substantial number of statesmen who selflessly served the nation.  
> What's it been, two-and-a-half centuries?

But I want statesmen who protect my opportunities, NOT provide them.  I think 
McCain would have selflessly served the country, buying his own particular 
schtick, and although we might have thereby avoided the impending left fist 
blow, or another right fist blow, we would surely have been kicked in the 
groin.  
God only knows what my imagry of what Hillary would have done might be!

The underlying tenents of our economic system are sound and fair if ever they 
would be given an opportunty to work.



> 
> >I've not seen the count, who knows how many incumbents were thrown out?
> 

You'd have liked it here in the local elections.  Half of them were 
unceremoniously thrown out and a lot of local mayors and councilmen were 
recalled.  It 
was a GOOD local election.  

And don't get me wrong.  I would not have been happy for a McCain victory.  I 
didn't vote for him.  No presidential result would have much pleased me.  But 
I see the metal still hot on the forge and should be bracing for the next 
hammerblow.  There is still plenty of dross left to be burned away.

Bring it on!