Letters to the Editor
Gregg R
Published Letters: 5 Editor's Choice: 1
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Questions about Heather's mysterious being
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How does a female TV critic know obscure references about specialist geniuses like Frege and Cantor?
Why does she have the same taste in TV programming that I do?
Will she marry me?
-G
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Why I donated to Ron Paul yesterday
[Read the article: The Ron Paul phenomenon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am an independent who has almost always voted Democratic in practice. I tend to be a "moderate libertarian" in my political thinking, leaning towards the socially liberal but fiscally conservative end of the spectrum. I thought Bill Clinton did an excellent job during his two terms. Yesterday I donated to a political candidate for the first time in my life and that candidate was Ron Paul.
I did not donate to his candidacy because I agree with him on every position -- I strongly disagree with his views on the lost-cause of abortion and do so on libertarian grounds -- but because I believe he is right on the most important issues of our time. I believe he is the only candidate that would return to congress, the states and the people the usurped powers now residing in the executive branch; the only candidate who would rescue our currency and relieve our national debt; and the only candidate who would truly curtail the expansion of our misguided American empire.
I also believe he would force our nation and our congress to ask themselves the right questions about how we use our government. It should not be wielded as a magic powerstick by which we try to cure all ills. That simply turns it into a dangerous machine over which factions fight so they can use its coercive might to help themselves. I also believe our highly non-libertarian congress would moderate his more radical agenda, and in the process the conflicts he would force with them would be healthy for our nation.
Those are the reasons I donated to Paul. I'd encourage others to donate also. Our nation needs this change.
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What programmers learn about politics from programming
[Read the article: Ron Paul's Internet cha-ching ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We learn alot about the law of unintended consequences, and that the more complex a system is, the more important it is to pay attention to that law. We see the social and political systems of a nation like ours as being perhaps the most complex things there are, and we are skeptical they can be 'programmed' through lots of legislation.
For example, we see regulatory bodies set-up to protect us from abuses of corporate power. They may do some good things from time to time, but as they evolve it becomes clear that to regulate an industry one needs industry expertise, which means sourcing the regulators from the industry being regulated and consulting with industry lobbyists. In the end, the regulatory body is co-opted by the industry it's supposed to be regulating, increases the power of the dominant players in that industry, decreases competition, and does more harm than good. That's the law of uninteded consequences.
We also learn the best way to deal with complex systems is through smart local decision making of intelligent agents, and to trust in the self-organizing power of agents. These systems don't find the 'best' solution all the time, but on average they do better than programs that look for solutions from a top-down perspective.
Apply these lessons to politics and economics, and you've got someone who leans libertarian. Like me.
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Where is Greenspan's error again?
[Read the article: Alan Greenspan on the mortgage crisis: "I didn't do it!"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't understand this drive to scapegoat Greenspan, unless it's issuing from a general liberal antithesis to anyone who is agressively free-market.
America isn't the only country which experienced a real estate bubble. It has happened all over the western world. That, along with interest rate insensitivity to the Fed's tightening moves, does point to global forces at work.
Also, ARM's are a great idea. I have one myself and it has saved me tens of thousands of dollars in mortgage interest over the fixed-rate alternative. The problem that arose was from reckless lending standards, enabled by a separation of lender from ownership of the debt. Greenspan is hardly to blame for that.
This article was just entirely irrational -- like the worst of of the dreck I see in the MSM. It started with a thesis and then cherry picked and slanted whatever it could find to try to support it. I subscribe to Salon because I expect better than this.
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It's not about the polls
[Read the article: Republicans have become the credibility-free party]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Democrats resistance to resistance is not credibly explained by political cowardice, and perhaps not even by moneyed lobbyists. Looking at the whole pattern, I think there's a decent amount of circumstantial evidence that Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate are implicated in Bush's worst abuses and now have to protect the President to protect themselves. I suspect in the early years after 9/11, when Bush was at the height of his popularity, several or many of them were briefed on patently illegal things, potentially even war crimes.
In the atmosphere of the time they were too cowardly to speak out, and now that the atmosphere has changed, they are stuck.