Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

>  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.

Quite right. But the possibility, the belief, the motivation, is what  
makes our free enterprise system highly productive.

>  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.

He comes from an understanding of a culture that could never succeed  
without government intervention. If government had stayed out of the  
way of equal rights, blacks would still be counted as three-fifths of  
a person and not even allowed to vote, let alone pursue their dreams.

And, James, surely you see that the current economic distress at least  
partially comes from government nonintervention. Government did get  
out of the way of much of Wall Streeters. The result is disastrous.
> > > 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.

We shall see. There is much room between hope and deed.