Re: European [and Australian] "Socialists"

From: Timothy Bates (tbates@bunyip.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Date: Sat Nov 14 1998 - 20:13:00 MST


Hi all,

the following was cited as a "fuck you jack - I've got mine" attitude:
>< We should immediatley eliminate any
>government spending in education and reduce taxes - possibly selling
>off all government education related resources and refunding the money
>to tax payers. >

It was further suggested that
>> `fuck you, Jack' might sound like a very unfair and
>>offensive way to sum up what he's written. But in practice, I think that's
>>what it amounts to.

Of course, it _might_ be very different ;-)

It might be that this person is saying:
"let's stop taxing factory workers to pay for rich people's education."

It might be someone saying
"let's stop having an elitist medical system in which the state hands out
million-dollar lifetime salaries to a select group of individuals,
legally prohibiting competition."

It might be someone who believes in meritocracy and believes that state
rationing of education promotes less access, not more.

To impute a "fuck you Jack" consciousness to this person is as rational
as Freud imputing hostility where there is none because "it is just
symptom transference".

I think that an objective review of comments on this list would reveal
that self-interest is at once higher and lower than in any other group in
society.

Higher because we believe we are the Captains of our souls. Lower because
we have a vision of the future which we will gladly work toward. The
critical thing is that we are not willing to enslave others to reach our
goal: taxation is slavery.

all the very best,
tim

____________________
Todays definition:Curiosity

Richard Feynmann, suffering terminal cancer, made the doctor promise to
take away the anesthetic before he dies because "I want to feel what it's
like to turn off."



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