Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 5:11 a.m. (Suggest removal)

What are the five factors studied?

The Rockefeller family has done wonderful things for the country, on many levels. Now if they would just get the price of gas down so the people can both go to community college and eat.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 6:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Okay, now I see. The study does not show what this editorial says it does.

Mississippi's community colleges do not rank fourth in the nation. The study, conducted by the Institute, which is the Public Policy Research Arm of New York State University, made no attempt to compare the top-notchness of community colleges in one state against the top-notchness of community colleges in another state.

The study was about understanding the difference in utilization rates of community colleges among the states. The study found that in all fifty of the states the increase in number of persons attending community college is greater than the increase in the number of people attending four year colleges. The study wants to know why. This seems to indicate a shift away from four year and toward two year education, my own conclusion, but I think a rational one considering what community colleges do and changes in the economy brought on by globalization.

What Mississippi and the other states mentioned rank high in is in measurements of things having no qualities of goodness or badness. The measurements are just measurements.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 8:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)

As measured by the International Programme for Student Assessment in 2006, the United States did not even rank in the top 20 of nations tested in math, science, and reading. The United States actually lost ground in all three areas over the three years between the 2003 and 2006 assessments. US students did manage to get into the top 20 of the 38 nations measured for problem solving, coming in at number 20.

!2 states are receiving literacy aid from the international aid organization Save the Children.

In 2005 the US entered for the first time the top five of the world's most globalized nations.

What is going on here?

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 8:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Three of the states in the study, Mississippi, New Mexico, and North Carolina are in the top twelve of states with the highest percentage of people living below the poverty line, and these same states are in the top twelve of states with the lowest median income level.

I agree though, Co-Lin fulfills a much needed function and I am glad we have it. More education is better than less and it is an encouraging sign that more people are using Mississippi's community college system.

Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 8:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Two questions. The first question is, does the title "Community College Are Top Notch" represent the best of our english skills?

Second question -- When the Democrat writes an editorial such as this, and EnKiKur comes along and shows the bigger, truer picture, does the Democrat Editorial Board feel they are being one-upped?

An editor once told me that after the first 125 words half of your audience is gone. I suspect this is the reason for the simple-sounding themes often promoted by editorials everywhere. But I am afraid brevity does not lend itself to accuracy.

Posted by npc (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 9 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Enkikur, correct me if I am wrong, but here in the U.S. we have to educate every kid regardless of their abilities, where in other countries they don't do this. Therefore this pulls down our ranking. This is the same problem that our Healthcare deals with. We try and save everyone and other countries don't waste resources on people and babies they consider past the point of no return. Other countries don't even put these people in the statistics therefore making our healthcare system look inferior. The U.S. spends endless amounts of money on education and healthcare regardless of ability to learn or ability to thrive. We figure all of these people in our statistics. Other countries don't meet these standards.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 9:16 a.m. (Suggest removal)

You are wrong npc. I challenge you to research every one of your assertions. The nations in the IPSA, while having differing degrees of all measurable aspects of social development and social responsibility are all highly competitive with the US. There are many common misconceptions promoted through media that people don't investigate on their own. As a nation we have become more comfortable with being told what reality is than questioning it for ourselves.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 9:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)

npc, I have to add though, this caveat. What you say about US education, educating all regardless of ability, lowering of rankings due to this, is true; it is the process of leveling, from which the idea of leveled schools emerges, schools earning a leveled rating. It is public educational policy to even the knowledge gap among sub groups of the American public. The belief is that this will create more social and economic equity because among the masses, the masses will have about the same degree of knowledge, and a leveled playing field is created.

The comparison to other nations measures how our fifteen year old students compare to fifteen year old students in other countries. My point is why are we pursuing an education policy that statistically lowers us against the standards of other nations in the developed and developing world? And why are international assessments even being made by an entity named Organisation for Economic Development and Co-Operation? What do you think the reason behind this policy is?

Is OCED checking to see how good a job the US is doing in preparing its students for an international leveled playing field? Didn't Dr. Morris say his goal was to put into place a curriculum to prepare the students for the global workforce? All questions very well worth taking the time to answer, or to at least try to find the answer to on one's own.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 9:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Here is an example to ponder. I know a young man of about 12 years in the Jackson public school system who has earned advanced placement. Part of the requirement for remaining in advanced placement is that he perform a certain number of hours of community service each week. If he does not do this community service he will be put out of advanced placement. While child labor laws prevent him from working to earn money at his age, the school requires he work for free to get the better education. The extra hours he must put out each week could be spent on academic instruction in his special areas of interest, but that would promote individual interest over collective interest. Do you see?

Posted by fire39212 (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 10:18 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Wow enkikur as always you have very interesting post. Thanks

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 10:21 a.m. (Suggest removal)

You are welcome, comrade. :)

Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 10:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)

EnKiKur, are you weighing in on either side in your assertion that public education policy, paid for with public dollars, should seek to benefit those who are below a functionality level, even if that means that resources be steered away somewhat from those already most competent?

I actually agree with the concept that our lamest should be most eagerly brought up to snuff. They are the most likely to cost themselves and the rest of us a lot of money during their lifetimes.

Regarding the decision by the Jackson schools to require public service with advanced placement, is there anything really wrong with that? It's not like the labors of any given 12 year old are likely to have significant value to the community greater than the value to the student for performing the work.

Of course the efficacy of the process and the wisdom of it would depend on the work required. But these students will find out quickly enough that society expects more from them than what their 12 year old selves and their parents dictate. Policy should certainly not teach students that they are -- regardless of existing advantages -- entitled to government "owing" them financing for the most extreme excellence they personally can attain. Government should be a safety net instead of an entitlement we use as if we were all in business for ourselves.

Our concept of "self" in this country is small enough I think. What most people prize as themselves does not include a knowledge of their nutrition, of science, of the environment, or of their neighbors' welfare.

We have just witnessed about 8 years of America being run -- more than ever in my lifetime -- on the ethic that getting number one ahead is the panacea for everything. Doing that seems to have made our politicians lie more, not less, spend more, not less, and to claim that public servants should operate in a veil of secrecy -- to keep them from being prosecuted, evidently.

Not everybody is as smart as you and me, He,he!

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 11:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Here is the difference Yeahuhuh. There is not question that charitable acts are desirable, a gift to society, and that is what free work is. Voluntary charity is an expression of love for fellow man by an individual, while forced charity is an expression of the power of the state. Voluntary charity sets an example for others to follow, while forced charity sets an example of obedience to authority.

I can demonstrate to you that there is no signifcanct difference between what we know as capitalism and socialism, and that both capitalism and socialism are not free market ideas. Capitalism and socialism work hand in hand to create inequitable distribution of resource and class awareness. Each employs the other. I don't have time to explain this right now, so see you later.

Posted by npc (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 11:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)

The reason I made my comments is that about 5 - 6 years ago a group of educators from Japan, I believe, came to Natchez and toured our school district. They were shown every level of education and abilities. They were shocked at some of the kids we were trying to educate. They thought we were crazy for wasting resources on kids that weren't capable of excelling. As far the medical community, I know for a fact that when a premature baby is born and has complications, other countries do very little to help the baby survive and in some cases the child is not considered a birth therefore not showing up on statistics. Also, my parents have friends in the Canada socialized medicine and they tell them that after you reach a certain age, it is almost impossible to get medical care. They all have private insurance in the U.S. Also, they said that if you are over a certain age and come down with a terminal illness, all they try and do is make you comfortable for death. In the U.S. we will spend a million dollars keeping an 88 year old alive whether you can pay for it or not.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 11:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)

npc, your comments are very relevant and I would like to discuss them with you later. You bring up some extremely important points.

Posted by Teach4Peace (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 12:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)

NPC, your last post was dead on it. China and other countries you have two choices, if you are the best of the brightest, you will receive an education, if not, you inherit or work at the family business, you don't get an education or study abroad, their government sees to that.

Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 12:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Enkik, my point does not revolve around the explanation of how socialism and capitalism abet one another for the inequitable distribution of wealth. There is no such thing as an equitable distribution of wealth, the way I see it. Life is too complicated for that, but it does not really hamper me or you I would suspect.

Certainly acquiring an equitable distribution is not setting everyone free and letting them grab what they can get away with -- some people will use standards of equity and fairness that are daft at best and crooked beyond belief at worst. Those who already have an advantage will claim they got it fair and square, and they demand their piece of the public pie, too, based not on need but on how much they can grab with their fortunate hands.

And whether an act of charity is forced or not is not really the point either. Someone will likely have to force the idea of charity on people or they will not show it, and mama does have a bit better track record at making us act right than the government, for sure. But a preoccupation that government has no right to mandate service because it encourages an obedience training is about 5 degrees off plumb.

The fact is if we are participants in a society where we breathe the same air and use the same roads, banking systems, health care, etc, then a certain amount of forced awareness of others is inevitable. Back before there were so many of us the frontier spirit was OK for a while, but that was then.

Too often the crowd that calls itself libertarian would faust their own idea of entitlement on the rest of us -- that somehow they believe in self-reliance as if it were a religious matter -- and in the process they make a God of it. Every one of those folks I ever saw that tried to do that used public infrastructure just like the rest of us -- many even more. And most of them had been benefitting from generations of use of those unfair bad decisions that society had made in the past.

So yes we all pay for the roads and bridges, but the trucking companies tear them up most, so they should reasonably pay more. And all those poor people who can't pay their medical bills help make doctors richer if not directly then indirectly. The biggest libertarian I know is a doctor who rakes it in from the poor and the welfare that follows them. We all matter some way.

You are courageous in your exposure of penal improprieties and the ills of government oversight of everything, and on that we are together. However the best thought on problem solving comes from addressing individual issues and the specifics of their solutions -- NOT an ideologically specious argument for the dissolution of government. That said, I think we are actually very close in our positions.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 7:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The issue of controlled resource is not ideologically specious. There are specific examples all around us. Regarding economic theory, the only one that has never been tried for a sufficiently long enough time to discover whether or not it works is free market theory.

npc's example of terminal patients in Canada above a certain age who are denied treatment in favor of preparation for death is an example. The individual's life is seen as worth less than the cost to the system. This is how things work in an economy with a high degree of control.

The cadaver thin bodies of the concentration camp victims being bulldozed into the mass graves is another example of a highly controlled economy. The actual bodies of the camp slaves were depreciated rapidly in a cost/benefit analysis that showed how long a slave could be worked on how much food balanced against the cost of procuring new slaves. Slaves were plentiful in Germany at that time, so it was more beneficial to rapidly depreciate the bodies of the laborers than to maintain them with food.

Currently in the US, the CDC has announced that in cases of disease epidemic or large scale natural disaster treatment for the very young and the old and those with weakened conditions due to other illness would only come after those in their productive years. This is true, look around a little and you can find the articles.

These are all aspects of a centralized economy, and there are several other big disadvantages to it.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 7:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I am of the opinion that forced anything begets nothing but resistance.

I am not for the dissolution of government, I am for the Constitutional government all the states agreed they were going to have.

I am against the ideas that see people as human capital to be used by those claiming to represent the good of all. As you say, complete fairness, or equity, is not supported in nature, at least not on the surface of the material world.

Of two trees of the same type side by side on a hill, one is larger. Would you deny nourishment to one in favor of the other?

The earth has only one history and it is a history that repeats itself again and again. That history is the story of the land and man's relationship to the land; there are a limited number of ways that relationship can be carried out and they always end in the same result.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 8:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Further, your point does exactly revolve around how capitalism and socialism abet one another, for all further determination of life evolves from the approach to the use of available earthly resource.

Our government itself admits that it has no right to mandate service, for the Constitution forbids involuntary servitude except as penalty for certain crimes.

My nephew can refuse to serve of course, and in this case, another specific example, he will be denied that education all ready available that he has demonstrated the ability to make good use of. His mother, our whole family, pay thousands of dollars a year to provide this education. It costs no more than the education provided to those of lesser intellect who are required to make no service at all. To attempt to make my nephew feel guilty about what God and nature have alloted him by coercing him into service is a crime against the natural order. He is already caring and giving, and that came as you say, not just from his mother but from the capacity for it's expression that God and nature have also alloted him.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 8:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)

One more thing, education no longer educates up, it educates down. The public schools bring the most able down the level of the least able and that will have a high cost to society as well.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 9:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The value in education lies not only in the ability it bestows upon one in earning material benefits for oneself and for others, the value of true education lies in giving one the tools of discernment needed to work out the constant human problem that life does not appear fair; equity exists but does not lie in the surface world of sense impression but in the quietly arrived at observation that while on the outside the natural order appears to be unfair, the observer within the body exists in a complete and whole state in contrast to what it observes. From this observation comes the corollary that the whole state exists in all, and that it comes to each in its own way through the path alloted by nature or nature's God.

Yearning for equity is a deep human yearning testified to by its constant appearance in all the literature of the world. It is such a deep yearning the days of the year, the two equinoxes, days of equal light and dark, are celebrated the world over in its honor.

While one comes to this understanding through intellect, another comes to it through devotion, and another through the field of action. A more fair education would direct students into that field of inquiry best suited, instead of into a standard system to which none fit well.

You think we are further apart than we are in understanding, because you believe me to hold an ideology I do not hold. I look forward to further discussion with you.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 20, 2008 at 9:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Lastly, I have to speak up in defense of the way the Democrat wrote this editorial.

Papers operate within a system that requires they meet deadlines in order to serve the reader's thirst for new articles everyday. I can tell from reading the study that someone read too fast, or not all the way; in the beginning of the study it says four states rank first in all five aspects studied. Writing under a deadline you have to sometimes skim your research and if you do it enough you will make mistakes.

If the paper were allowed by law to operate the way banks do, it could take all its one year subscriptions and make nine more copies on them, stamp AAA on them and sell them at 85% of their value; win/win, the Democrat would get the cash and the investors would earn 15% at the end of a year...pretty good for right now.

During the year the Democrat could interview unbiased financial advisers who talk about what a wonderful investment AAA subscription backed Democrat securities are worth, and the residents could have a wonderful time trading them and counting their profits. Near the end of the year the Democrat could begin to speculate about the coming subscription crash, denounce the advisers and the greed driven investors, burst the bubble and buy the subscriptions back for one or two pennies on the dollar.

All the while Democrat sales would increase as people vicariously enjoyed the impending doom of the investors and joined in denouncing the inept advisers; advertising would shoot up. The Democrat could hire more people and still have the cash to party.

But the Democrat is forced to do business with what it has, not with what it can make people believe it has. Good enough, Democrat, and welcome to the new reporters.

Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on May 21, 2008 at 9:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)

EnKik, no one can accuse you of being too quiet can they? he,he!

As I mentioned above, we are not that far apart in our positions, it is how we proceed that differs. I think I judge the success of a system on more ordinary earthly standards of human needs and happiness though, and you seem to be holding out for something far more ideologically extreme.

As you said nobody has tried what some would call free enterprise, that because after evolving through all the attempts for a couple of milllion years we have decided that someone will corrupt it in the process of setting up the ground rules. And when it comes to free-er enterprise folks have a way to think what they want to be free should, but that the other guys' preference is too dangerous.

It is not the paying attention to resource allocation that is the specious reasoning I referred to -- it is this concept that free enterprise unbounded is a panacea -- but unfortunately you or no one has ever seen a way to have real free enterprise, after factoring in the complexities. It's a buzz word mostly for those people who are already doing just fine, and for politcians to target a segment of supporters .

Almost nobody believes that heroin, psychedellics, nuclear fuel, antitank weaponry and parathion should all be legal, that pollution on your own land is just fine because you own it today, that all the beasts and plants can be sourced for human commerce without a mind to what is left. Free enterprise just went out the window with those simple concepts. And the smarter we get about chemical and physical cause and effect the less likely unbounded free enterprise will become.

As for your nephew, he should look at the public school system for what it is -- a safety net that were it not for the grace of God (or whatever spirit indwells) HE would be using to it's fullest because of disease or bad luck. There are a great many disciplines that he might use to further his education if it was too great a burden on him to do public service activities. In fact, in the commerce of education, I think he might find that even with the public service, his parents' taxes can still serve him reasonably well. And if not, at his young age, he can go elsewhere.

Just a guess, but I bet those public service activities are designed to be manageable. And it might be doing the child a disservice for the adults around him to trump them into a gross offensive burden on ideological grounds.

If he doesn't want to participate in society's rules, he could try to be invisible, he,he! But then that is almost as hard as holding out happiness waiting for free enterprise.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 21, 2008 at 12:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)

The terms free enterprise, capitalism, and socialism in their real world application have in common the direction of the flow of capital to the top of the system. This is achieved by negating the value of the laborer in terms of what share of the overall capital the laborer is allowed for his own use.

No matter what this system calls itself, or is called by others, capital, the labor of the people and their individual share of earthly resource ends up in the control of a small number of individuals who have taken or been given the power to choose for all how resource is distributed. Sometimes, in the minds of those at the top of the system, hard decisions must be made that result in high or higher levels of suffering for those at the bottom; those at the top retain their positions of power and security.

It is this complex system of centralized power and control worldwide that is responsible for the ills of pollution and war we see today. These complex systems can only arise through various social control mechanisms such as the one that creates the idea that while it is good for those at the top of the system to achieve lifelong security through the taking of the capital from the bottom, it is wrong for those at the bottom to aspire to gain security through their own labors.

Instead of promoting ideological extremes, I am thinking in fundamental terms those at the tops of the world systems have known for generations. What I am promoting is not is a mad rush for world resource but a system of law that protects the weak from the powerful. The degree to which the current world landlords control the people living on the land, who have as much right to the land as the landlords is illustrated in the two following examples:

One child policy in China is the brainchild of the Rockefeller Foundation. Mao was supported in his rise to power by western capitalists. One child policy, imposed on the people through a system of taxation and now or soon to be criminal penalty, if followed will lead to the eradication of the Chinese population over time.

America has a two child policy. Tax credits are given for two children, even to people who pay less in taxes than they weil receive back for the credit. The middle class, which has lower birth rates, is incentivized in tax reduction. The lower class, which has higher birth rates is incentivized with a payment for following the policy.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 21, 2008 at 1:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)

What those at the top know is that land cannot be owned in the sense of the common understanding of ownership. In that regard, their are only claims to land ownership and these claims can only be held through force, agreement, or lack of other claimants.

Social structure and the governing laws arise out of considerations of land use. Who gets to use the land? The lower class exists to work the land, and the middle class exists to administrate the laws governing use and exchange of land, and the upper class exists to direct the lower two in coming to the understanding that the lower two classes have neither the ability nor the desire to govern themselves. So long as the upper class is successful in maintaing this illusion that is how long the upper class maintains its position as lords of the land.

The issue now, and in the past, and forever in the future is how the laws governing use of the land are constructed. Who do they favor? All, or some?

America was an attempt to break the hold of landlords. Just as you say the laws created have been corrupted because there are those with the will to do so. Education is the key to better legislation. Education aimed at promoting the landlord system promotes our modern incarnation of the manorial system. I merely want to return to the system, as set up in the Constitution, that sought to distribute the use of the land and its products as equitably as possible. And it is possible to do that, but deeper understanding is needed by common people of man's relationship to the land and what it means.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 21, 2008 at 1:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)

In the spirit of democracy, if the slaves of the plantation had been able to vote for who their owner would be, would the lot of the slaves have been improved?

If a plantation were owned by one man, or many, would that improve the lot of the slaves?

Those things you mention, legality of heroin and psychedlics, nuclear fuel and antitank weaponry and parathion, those things are red herrings because they are and ever have been under the control of the world's landlords.

Illegal drugs provide a greater share of the modern peasant's earnings to the world banking systems than they would if they were legal. Having them illegal makes them more expensive.

Nuclear fuel is legal, but belongs to the landlords. Antitank weapons are not needed if there are no tanks to use them against, and both are produced by the landlords to serve their purposes.

Parathion and other agricultural chemicals are not needed, but their use is promoted by the landlords for use by their industrial farming villeins. It is possible in the temperate zone to produce more than 30,000 lbs. of mixed fruits and vegetables per acre using techniques that organically sustain the land and have a low labor intensity.

Agricultural surplus is the basis of a free society because it supplies the basic needs Maslow outlined in his heirarchy, giving the people time to reflect and perfect thier society. Controlled economies see agricultural surplus as wasted resource though and enact legislation to prevent it.

Controlled economies create the very problems they then ask the peasants to give them more power to control to solve the problem created.

Controlled economies are also onerous to the people. My nephew got into some trouble a couple of years ago. In his school in the Pearl school system the students are required to walk from class to class single file under the supervision of a teacher. They are required to walk with thier arms hanging straight down by their sides so they do not invade the space and rights of the students in front and behind. Try walking like that. It is very unnatural. My nephew, as boys will, began to pretend he was powerwalking and so fell into censure. Likely a note of that was made on his record because my sister was notified of his transgression.

Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on May 21, 2008 at 5:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)

You are certainly one smart cookie but I still think I have a more efficient method of moving to your goals than you do.

As long as the lower classes can be scared, tricked or baited into supporting government, they are vulnerable to being fooled in all the ordinary ways. And they are a long way from understanding what you write. At least here that is true.

Enter the battles of the right and left, baiting the citizenry with one concession or another -- the right offering free enterprise utopias that never existed and claiming they represent God himself, and the left offering some relief piecemeal and the (doomed) effort to make the upper classes pay.

The problem as I see it is that too many people make too much money the way things are for anyone to allow change and us good ol boys on the land unfortunately are about as smart as the cattle we run. Toss out a lofty principle that sounds American or sounds like their relatives talking and most folks can be moralized into fattening their worst enemies. The vision and the will to see if "we" violate our own principles is beaten out of the rest of us by trolls who swear they are being patriotic but whose result is to throw policy decisions to the higher ups without scrutiny.

First we need to eliminate the factions who are the least trustworthy -- and I am afraid that is today's GOP. Luckily they are helping us with that right now. Democrats, God Bless them are just not ruthless enough to lie like Republicans, and tend to be too polite to even call them what they are.

Then we establish what personal rights are important, and I am not talking about rights for states and deep pockets to have their way with their populations. I am talking about individual rights to freedom. We will certainly have to wait until the present Supreme Court is impeached or passes on for that, as the individual seems to be the last on their list of favorites.

We keep as many people as happy as possible while we are doing that. That is going to require access to health care at least at a level of cost comparable to the rest of the world, and a concerted effort to be free of oil's domination.

These steps are -- according to some people -- what is happening. I know it is very slow, but the good news is that we can get enough stuff to be secure if most of us work a bit for it -- incredible wealth and everything we could possibly want was never something we really needed.

If we just brought this country down to the level of having an ordinary rate of incarceration and an ordinary rate of attacking and manipulating other countries, it would be a great improvement over what we have seen since Reagan. Having our citizens pay an ordinary rate on their health care based on a global scale wouldn't be bad either.

Right now our biggest problem is educating the public to demand those things without some misguided patriot calling you Jane Fonda.

Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on May 21, 2008 at 6:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I don't disagree with the spirit of any of the points you just made. I will say that the masses may be far more educable than so many give them credit for. When the Jesuits went into South America to spread their good works and teach the peasants to read, they found that as soon as the peasants could make sense of "he owns the land who tills it" the peasants gained a much keener appetite for reading. This came to my attention from the writings of John Taylor Gatto.

Unlike you I believe there to be only one party operating in Washington and that is the party of money and power. There are in both major divisions of this party those good willed souls whose voices are drowned out by the priests of the money religion.