Comments on: Off To A Fine Start

By: Daedalus

Daedalus — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 04:56:30 +0000

My thought:
A great deal (maybe most) of human behaviour is habit. For a person to acquire new habits of thought his environment has to stress him in some fashion causing him to re-evaluate the thinking (or lack of it) that led to the habits of thought which are now causing him some stress. Stressful times like these open windows for change, but the alternative ways of looking at the world have to be present in sufficient places and of sufficient intensity to cause them to be noticed as alternatives. You are in a better position than me to know how to increase the number of hits on your blog and methods to make it show up higher on the search engine returns.
There are a number of large reasonable websites fighting the battle most of which I am sure you know.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5429
capmag is one such site and Sowell a good fighter.

By: Troy

Troy — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:54:05 +0000

Daedalus said: “To avoid a repeat the new education must be about the philosophical underpinnings of both economic and political values. Blogs such as this one are part of the effort needed.”

I agree (and I thank you for the implication this blog actually has value – other than the therapeutic value I get from writing it).

Assume, for discussion, that the Internet could be used for the purpose you propose… I am very eager to know how you suggest that we proceed. Especially, how we can get those most in need of the education to show up prepared to learn?

By: daedalus

daedalus — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:31:05 +0000

I would agree that the government could not be counted on for education, they are not very good at it. The education and re-education has to come from individuals and institutions. This has happened before. We need folks such as Hayek and Von Mises and Milton Freidman on the economic front. these folks led to the “Reagan revolution.” The latter all fell apart when the new republicans fell into the same feeding troughs as the democrats. To avoid a repeat the new education must be about the philosophical underpinnings of both economic and political values. Blogs such as this one are part of the effort needed.

By: Troy

Troy — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:25:29 +0000

Thanks for the comments. You have given me something to think about.
I still like the idea of a constitutional convention for several reasons. First, it would frighten the folks in DC – maybe to the point where they would clean up their act. If not and the convention is held, I think improvements could be made. With one vote per state, the huge majority of liberals in California, New York, Massachusetts and the like would be nullified.
Option 2 can and possibly will work for a few states, hopefully including Texas where there has long been an undercurrent of desire to become an independent republic again. Easy to see Alaska doing so too.
I agree about option 3 but still consider that better than going off to the slaughter peacefully, like the Jews did in WWII.
Option 4, IMHO, has the very least chance, however much we might wish otherwise. I think it would take the scope and power of government to implement such an idea and I simply cannot see a socialist government allowing that. Even if it would, where would the resources come from to implement it? Why would the supporters of government plunder want to send their children to such a school?

By: Daedalus

Daedalus — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:39:57 +0000

I’m afraid a constitutional convention at this time would not serve any useful purpose. The delegates would be of the same caliber and beliefs as your elected officials and the “new” constitution would be worse than the moified old one.
As for option 2 look at the red states vs. the blue states then at the marginal republican majorities in the red states. Seccession will never be supported.
Option 3 would take years to implement and would be very chancy of being successful. In the meantime overseas looters would take every option to plunder the resulting mess.
There is a fourth option. Private education and re-education of the masses in the principles needed to sustain our Republic. Eventually, probably not in our lifetimes, the Republic might be restored.