The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by andrew b:

It seems that the structure of funding for education (from property taxes in a very localized area) would be the easiest way of ensuring the status quo: society has the most to gain from limiting the horizons of its least fortunate members. The poorest have the most to gain from education, but social order is undermined. The more a family has invested in the maintenance of the status quo, the more that a child of such a family could be trusted with enlarged perspectives and knowledge.

The opportunities for learning should therefore be directly correlated with the socioeconomic status of the family - poor=little, middle class=more, rich=everything. And the best way to achieve this correlation is through local financing of schools through property tax.

Not that this was necessarily deliberate, but it is the best way to perpetuate the system now; and conversely, nationalising the funding and standards might be the best way to introduce class fluidity.

..."Do some caring in advance. Life has surprises in store"...

Rawlsian social justice? If we could be asked, before knowing how the lottery of birth will pay out, and where life will ultimately take us, we would probably try to ensure a certain level of well-being and security to those in the lowest position, the worst-case scenario. Unfortunately, in most cases we do know where we will end up, making empathy an exercise, rather than innate.

But can I share some anecdotes? You wouldn't believe the trouble that a working-class white kid could get into: Mugged at knifepoint, in downtown Pittsburgh. My 16 year-old, 130 pound frame shoved into a narrow alley and slammed against the wall. Money quote, "First, I'm gonna stab ya"...He didn't, but I'll never forget that line. Still a liberal though.

Been in jail myself over ten times. Most of the people there just can't keep their sh*t together, as it goes. Drugs, drunkenness and financial transgressions (vehicle registrations, licenses suspended, unpaid tickets will all get you warrants and arrested) Baloney sandwiches, psychotic cellmates, screams of the completely insane or those withdrawing from drugs. Just true, not melodrama. As a trustee, I've cleaned blood and feces smeared on the walls of the isolation tanks.
...but what lands most people in jail is simply an inability to control the chaos in their lives. It's a common human condition, but most of us have more of a buffer - financial, family, or class. Whether the chaos or poverty comes first, causing the other, who can say?

Thanks.

....."to make damned sure no one ever knows whether we killed Saddam or not (reminiscent of an earlier decision to do the same thing with Osama bin Laden)".....

I've wondered if this strategy was deliberate - we were waiting to see if we needed the spectre of OBL or Saddam alive and threatening more than we needed the certainty and victory provided by their corpses. And the doubt is enough.
If we killed OBL (or Saddam in that first night "decapitation" attack - which I believe we did) people might say the war was over.

A full-scale invasion of Iraq after Saddam was known to be dead would have been controversial, but we wouldn't have enough control yet to stop. He might just turn up somewhere, when coincidently we have some other *interests*

I'm not complaining, I'm just saying. It's a pretty good strategy diplomatically and politically, although it does deny warrior Bush a victory parade down Pennsylvania Avenue with Saddam's head on a stick.
Maybe Rove's got other plans...can you see Bush giving his Republican nomination acceptance speech at ground zero with Saddam and OBL's heads on the podium as bookends for our warrier king?

What kind of government regulations on sex?

Mandated couplings, at least once a week? Government sponsored matching service for singles?
I'm feeling kinda...patriotic.

I'll go away now.

As to whether or not this attitude is pervasive - my two cents as a native of TX (20 years, now in California) - Yes, it is.
Sometimes, I think the phenomena is a deliberate blurring of the lines. Much as conservatives use welfare as a code word for blacks (despite statistical realities) they like to use *illegals* as a handy bogeyman, and through apathy or design, others are swept up in the definition.
What did Pat Buchanan's campaign slogan "America for Americans" really mean anyway? Surely, his proposed ten-foot electrified fence from San Diego to Brownsville had a mostly symbolic value, because it is so out of proportion. Is this a real national issue, without the scapegoat opportunity it provides? I often think that the primary appeal of the republican platform is this creation and promotion of the threat from the *other.* And the problem is, that's a really effective strategy. This week is it the feminists, environmentalists, Mexicans, blacks, muslims, Chinese, liberals, pointy-headed intellectual elites, or the media - I can't remember.
Heard this on AM talk radio last week in TX, as a matter of fact. "Most illegals don't immigrate through proper channels because they are criminals and wanted by some government somewhere...and since they are illegal, they should have no rights here...and they really come here to take advantage of our generous welfare system?"

“terrorism” isn’t going to sign any surrender agreements aboard the battleship Missouri...

Well as long as we defeat EVIL, I'll be satisfied.

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