From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Fri Aug 30 2002 - 08:04:34 MDT
>From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
>>Brian writes
>> That is the crux of the problem.
>What problem, would you say?
Is it wise to allocate citizenship the way we do?
>Here is the problem as I see it. Nations exist by historical
>necessity (if others don't believe it, then they should take a
>quick look at a globe). There are memes, traditions, and
>attitudes that help nations survive. If I belong to a nation, and
>don't help it survive then I'm a defector (both in the
>conventional and in the game-theoretic meaning of the term).
Okay.
>So if you want your nation to endure (and perhaps you should have
>reasons for that) then it follows that one ought to adopt the
>traditions and memes that enable it to do so. (Before some people
>knee-jerk react to that, notice the second word of this
>paragraph.)
Or some will "ride for free" if they know sufficient others will
pay the necessary costs.
>Quite apart from any team loyalty or patriotism, which doesn't
>necessarily need to be rational (it's an emotion, like love) I
>believe that the evidence strongly suggests that western nations
>are better nations, that they're happier and healthier nations.
>This follows from both the health and mortality figures on the one
>hand, and from something even more telling on the other: watch
>people's feet. You see them moving towards western nations
>whenever they can: who flees Europe for Africa? who flees the US
>for Central America?
But are western nations the way they are, avoiding a claim of
better, because of the actions of a few rather than the many?
>> It is of course both painful and infuriating to those
>> of us who have paid a heavy price for our citizenship
>> to see this country run down by people who have paid
>> nothing for theirs.
>I don't entirely buy the idea that you've made any great
>sacrifice. You did what you did because it seemed like the right
>thing to do and also a reasonably good deal. I have a question
>for you about this, so hold on.
You mean the four years I could have spent acting in my own
interests instaed, or the fact that despite attempts I'm still
breathing...
>> Heinlein's reasoning of course is that people don't respect
>>things they haven't had to pay dearly for. In "Starship Troopers"
>>you couldn't vote unless you had done a period of Federal
>>Service.
>However disadvantageous to me personally, I would vote in
>favor of such a restriction. But as you know, that vote
>and many similar ones would go down to defeat 5:1 or worse.
I don't know about this one, still debating the merits.
>My question: if you had it to do all over again, and with the
>Singularity approaching within 40 years, and given that Clinton's
>approval rating reached 75% during the height of the Lewinsky
>affair, and that the U.S., if anything, will remain as liberal as
>it is now until the end, and that "the problem" is that very few
>understand patriotism and even fewer are susceptible to it...
>would you do it again?
Despite the fact that the Marine Corp of the seventies was not what
it advertised itself as and other impossible sets of conditions.
And yet, yes I would do it again, I did the right thing for the
right reasons.
Brian
Member:
Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
SBC/Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W
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