I'll try to be brief. Your early days in Congress, you responded to constituent taunts about seven years of 'repeal and replace' rhetoric by pointing us to some sketchy talking points published by the Speaker's office. You now embrace the Freedom Caucus approach to health care, and have spoken publicly on their behalf. I'd like to impress on you a third way, the same way I expressed to Tom Perriello during the crafting and enactment of the ACA. Let me first state that I don't believe that the ACA has any insufficiencies that can't be attributed to GOP sabotage.
I've stated on Twitter to you and Rep Brat of Virginia's 7th district my objections to the anti-federalist erosion of the regulatory authority of the several states; the diversion of financial capital from investment to predation; and the frank refusal to legitimize and make provision for medical necessity as a public obligation of hospitality to others. All appear to be features of the Freedom Caucus approach. One that keeps coming up, for decades now, is the erosion of the sovereign capacity of the People as exercised by juries.
Prior to the ACA, medical emergencies large and small could be presented to certain hospital emergency rooms (and still can) with an assurance of appropriate treatment. This assurance is subsidized by providers, insurers, and governments, and ultimately by individuals in cost of services, premiums, and taxes.
I think we can agree that this last resort safety net of the emergency room is the least efficient place to effectuate a public guarantee of care. Despite crowd reaction to hypotheticals addressed in the 2012 Republican debates, turning people away is not an option. If you believe it is an option, just come out and say it. I assure you, the people of the Fifth district will take umbrage. The alternative is a system of care that promotes wellness, promotes relationships with providers, has multi-tiered service capacities appropriate to needs, and stops giving thousand dollar care to fifty dollar concerns.
What does all this, preserves the sovereignty of states and citizens, promotes responsible use of personal savings, and incentivizes cost containment and innovation? Look to Nelson County for some answers. I'm certain other localities in our Fifth district, in Virginia, and nationwide have similar exemplary public health providers. Embrace that service model. As far as where subsidies come from -- fellow patients, fellow policy holders, or fellow residents, such is a matter of political values and interests. We all want others to pay disproportionately. I don't much care how that allocation is made. I'll do my share. I do care when the result of those deliberations constrains juries, state and local governments, financial stability and justice, individuals in need of medical attention short of crisis, and competing models of care. I believe the Freedom Caucus formula threatens these and more fundamental American values.
I did try to be brief. Sorry. I'll close briefly by stating that subscription-style wellness services appear to me to be a service model by which state and local governments in partnership with the medical community can provide means-adjusted subsidized care and walk-in urgent care. Medical catastrophe remains a concern. Whose, I don't know, but wellness emphasis should lessen the instance of catastrophe and facilitate more efficient response. Think wellness. Legislate wellness. I've shared my views. I'm sure you will continue to share yours and hope several large venue town halls will be one means of sharing. The only personal response I'd request is your prepared constituent response to ACA related queries, by email or snail mail, as suits your operation.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Open letter to Rep Tom Garrett, re: Defense Budget
I look forward to bringing you a milkshake at your Charlottesville town hall meeting. I'm writing today about what I think is a shared concern about the debt burden our generation has placed upon generations to follow. Personally, I'm no opponent of debt incurred to obtain productive assets. I assail recurring and deepening debt incurred to live beyond ones means. Vague hopes of better days to come (unrealistic economic growth projections) defer today's assessment of what can be done without.
The Clinton presidency and Contract-With-America Congress brought an investment ethic to government functions. Money spent now on education and infrastructure, for instance, was expected to produce an ROI in reasonable (not fantastic) projections of consequent prosperity. Here, I decry the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus/Norquist ethic that Government has no right to reap what is sown. Sowing to the wind is as likely to squander itself in military boondoggle as in public sanitation, perhaps the archetypical function of good government. Trump seems to decry the denial of harvest of spoils (keep Iraq's oil) from the West Asian strife sown in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. All in all, it's been a bitter harvest there. Why? Posterity will ponder all that, as they imagine what more enlightened investments might have produced. Alternatively, posterity might imagine what worse might have come their way had our West Asian adventures not happened, while continuing to pay the bill.
In contrast to Norquist, whose pledge I hope you did not sign, Laffer (high priest of Voodoo economics) believed in the legitimacy, indeed the centrality, of government seeking to maximize (and wisely employ) revenue. I'm of the opinion that most revenue sources are to the left side of the Laffer Curve, though some economic activity and consequent revenue might respond favorably to tax reduction. In contrast I fear that Norquist and perhaps you either regard tax reductions to either universally enhance revenues or to be an intrinsic good that government be starved of revenue, despite diminished well being of the body politic. Nihilists, anarchists, objectivists, or whatever you call them believe the worthy will rise above the American carnage in an insolvent government's wake. That kind of ethic counts Escobar and Aidid among the worthy, not so much John Galt and Howard Roark of fairy tale fiction.
If Virgil Goode and Robert Hurt recall any of my emails to them, I thing of these long prefaces as a common feature. I eventually get to the point. The very point I expressed in a recent Tweet. Consider the effects of your budgetary decisions upon the well being of our grandchildren's grandchildren. Consider outlays as either a frivolity that does not justify the debt we pass on, as an investment in a more safe and prosperous future, as an obligation incurred by past sacrifice, or as a recurring activity of current net benefit to the body politic.
I'm not writing with specific instructions, except that defense expenditures appear to be of more political than productive value, with dubious, even negative expectations of beneficial outcomes. I believe that the Constitution calls not for quadrennial defense review, but explicitly for biennial review, and that such a review, with explicit consideration of the recurring value of such things as readiness and deterrence against credible threats and of the investment value of innovations and expeditions, is necessary for a proper defense authorization and associated budget. I believe that a properly considered military budget would be a considerable reduction from historic level, but don't expect that you would agree. I do expect that you agree to the need for proper consideration as a basis, and not the demagoguery of an impulsive Executive. Insist on the Constitutionally mandated biennial defense review prior to any authorization of programs or allocation of funds. I expect a response from you sharing upon what basis you are guided in considering outlays for National and Homeland Security.
The Clinton presidency and Contract-With-America Congress brought an investment ethic to government functions. Money spent now on education and infrastructure, for instance, was expected to produce an ROI in reasonable (not fantastic) projections of consequent prosperity. Here, I decry the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus/Norquist ethic that Government has no right to reap what is sown. Sowing to the wind is as likely to squander itself in military boondoggle as in public sanitation, perhaps the archetypical function of good government. Trump seems to decry the denial of harvest of spoils (keep Iraq's oil) from the West Asian strife sown in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. All in all, it's been a bitter harvest there. Why? Posterity will ponder all that, as they imagine what more enlightened investments might have produced. Alternatively, posterity might imagine what worse might have come their way had our West Asian adventures not happened, while continuing to pay the bill.
In contrast to Norquist, whose pledge I hope you did not sign, Laffer (high priest of Voodoo economics) believed in the legitimacy, indeed the centrality, of government seeking to maximize (and wisely employ) revenue. I'm of the opinion that most revenue sources are to the left side of the Laffer Curve, though some economic activity and consequent revenue might respond favorably to tax reduction. In contrast I fear that Norquist and perhaps you either regard tax reductions to either universally enhance revenues or to be an intrinsic good that government be starved of revenue, despite diminished well being of the body politic. Nihilists, anarchists, objectivists, or whatever you call them believe the worthy will rise above the American carnage in an insolvent government's wake. That kind of ethic counts Escobar and Aidid among the worthy, not so much John Galt and Howard Roark of fairy tale fiction.
If Virgil Goode and Robert Hurt recall any of my emails to them, I thing of these long prefaces as a common feature. I eventually get to the point. The very point I expressed in a recent Tweet. Consider the effects of your budgetary decisions upon the well being of our grandchildren's grandchildren. Consider outlays as either a frivolity that does not justify the debt we pass on, as an investment in a more safe and prosperous future, as an obligation incurred by past sacrifice, or as a recurring activity of current net benefit to the body politic.
I'm not writing with specific instructions, except that defense expenditures appear to be of more political than productive value, with dubious, even negative expectations of beneficial outcomes. I believe that the Constitution calls not for quadrennial defense review, but explicitly for biennial review, and that such a review, with explicit consideration of the recurring value of such things as readiness and deterrence against credible threats and of the investment value of innovations and expeditions, is necessary for a proper defense authorization and associated budget. I believe that a properly considered military budget would be a considerable reduction from historic level, but don't expect that you would agree. I do expect that you agree to the need for proper consideration as a basis, and not the demagoguery of an impulsive Executive. Insist on the Constitutionally mandated biennial defense review prior to any authorization of programs or allocation of funds. I expect a response from you sharing upon what basis you are guided in considering outlays for National and Homeland Security.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Open Letter to Rep Tom Garrett, re 2020 Census
Tom, I mostly know you from your Twitter wars in which I'm an occasional participant and avid spectator. I hope that occasions will arise in which you will address and engage with a room full of district residents. I don't feel the urgency that some do, and wish such occasions be constructive, not confrontational.
That said, this is my first occasion to reach out to you by the House email. The enforcement of immigration law is my issue. You might recall early in your Twitter career making a quip about sanctuary cities, to which I responded with a request to Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer to consider making it a sanctuary city. My position on such places is that their absence gives sanctuary to law enforcement from Due Process and other proper restraints. Sanctuary cities affirm our Constitution, while it is circumvented outside of them.
The activities of ICE agents has been newsworthy this past few weeks. Some say the pace of apprehensions has been consistent with recent trends. Others say the manner and target of apprehensions is categorically more hostile and arbitrary than before. You would know better than I the truth of the matter. I hope you are receptive to the truth of things despite what I regard as an extreme partisan lens.
I am moved to write by an article in Salon (we have such different preferences in news sources) by Matthew Rosza, dated this morning, Feb 16, 2017. The article suggests that ICE is specifically targeting places of refuge such as shelters from domestic abuse and cold temperatures. I shudder to think how sexual traffickers are cheering this development.
My own perspective comes from brief experience as a Census enumerator in the years leading up to the 2000 Census. I was often called to assure residents from whom, at the time, my one concern was collecting address information, that information was entirely confidential and unavailable to law enforcement, tax authorities or other possible sources of jeopardy.
The nature of my request is simple. The 2020 Census must maintain firewalls against any government object other than obtaining accurate aggregate information with which allocation of Congressman and other government resources are guided. The confidentiality of individual Census information must be inviolate. I expect from you an email or postal response specific to the 2020 Census.
BTW, when my car needed a jump start during my Census work, the one who stopped was a migrant apple picker. I did not ask his right to be here. I expect his employer followed applicable laws. But that incident, about 18 years ago, has ever since colored my appreciation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He was my neighbor.
That said, this is my first occasion to reach out to you by the House email. The enforcement of immigration law is my issue. You might recall early in your Twitter career making a quip about sanctuary cities, to which I responded with a request to Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer to consider making it a sanctuary city. My position on such places is that their absence gives sanctuary to law enforcement from Due Process and other proper restraints. Sanctuary cities affirm our Constitution, while it is circumvented outside of them.
The activities of ICE agents has been newsworthy this past few weeks. Some say the pace of apprehensions has been consistent with recent trends. Others say the manner and target of apprehensions is categorically more hostile and arbitrary than before. You would know better than I the truth of the matter. I hope you are receptive to the truth of things despite what I regard as an extreme partisan lens.
I am moved to write by an article in Salon (we have such different preferences in news sources) by Matthew Rosza, dated this morning, Feb 16, 2017. The article suggests that ICE is specifically targeting places of refuge such as shelters from domestic abuse and cold temperatures. I shudder to think how sexual traffickers are cheering this development.
My own perspective comes from brief experience as a Census enumerator in the years leading up to the 2000 Census. I was often called to assure residents from whom, at the time, my one concern was collecting address information, that information was entirely confidential and unavailable to law enforcement, tax authorities or other possible sources of jeopardy.
The nature of my request is simple. The 2020 Census must maintain firewalls against any government object other than obtaining accurate aggregate information with which allocation of Congressman and other government resources are guided. The confidentiality of individual Census information must be inviolate. I expect from you an email or postal response specific to the 2020 Census.
BTW, when my car needed a jump start during my Census work, the one who stopped was a migrant apple picker. I did not ask his right to be here. I expect his employer followed applicable laws. But that incident, about 18 years ago, has ever since colored my appreciation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He was my neighbor.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
As I watch the sit-in
A vote is coming. A vote is coming because a person struggling with lustful feelings he found repugnant got caught up in the culture wars. He sought a champion. He sought to be a champion. On Sept 12, 2001, a decision was made, to call the perpetrators of that criminal act champions of a cause. Holy warriors, not the debased thugs they were. And so, this tormented man saw the Junior League thugs of Daesh as champions, and adopted their tactics. And he was abetted in his quest to be a champion by a gun culture that affects potency as capacity for carnage. That's not specifically American culture. Most kleptocratic, autocratic and failed states (and criminal gangs) have a group of predators packing heat as a cultural ideal of empowered manhood. The integrity of this armed caste produced a convoluted etiquette among men that cannot abide acknowledged sexual lust or behavior. Gun culture killed the Orlando 49. The designation of the 9/11 bombers and their exploiters as warriors, not criminals, killed the Orlando 49. The self-loathing of a man whose cultural heritage could not abide or direct or relieve his homosexual impulses killed the Orlando 49.
And so a vote is coming. A vote to create a caste of people who are trusted with guns, and a caste disarmed. A vote to identify people by edict as disqualified for full citizenship. A vote to say yes to disarming for life (disenfranchising as well) the young man with a rock of cocaine base, while preserving full citizenship for the young man with a vial of cocaine powder. A vote too say yes to disarming the young man who calls Allah God with enough fervor to cause others discomfort, but to preserve the right of the young man who does not know God by name, but keeps evoking Him against the dreaded stranger.
Keeping guns out of the hands of people who ought not have guns is not the vote that should be taken, whether is involves universal background check, no-fly/no-buy, or good-guys with guns being the remedy against bad-guys with guns. All such designations create, whether by edict or some pretense of due process, a cohort who regard themselves as our protectors, but, like George Zimmerman, become our tormentors. No such cohort should exist among free men except under discipline. So says the Second Amendment. The vote ought be -- how to make access to that discipline consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment. How to have a national uniform discipline of armed citizens which resembles Dumas' Musketeers and not Duvalier's Macoute. How to encourage this body to be an enterprise of civic hospitality, not xenophobic hostility.
Last fall, I lobbied my Congressman for the second time on behalf of America Walks. My partner on visits to five Congresspersons (VA 3, 5, 7, 8, 10) and both Senators was a sports medicine physician. The easy access of hostile people to firearms came up in our travels. We both agreed that hostility was the issue more than firearms. And how to address hostility? Get outside. Get active. Get engaged in the world as it is, and not insist (and let ourselves be gratified by those who let us pretend, for a fee) that the would ought and could be just the way I like it. Infrastructure for unstructured spontaneous play and activity is the best investment Congress can make toward greater civility, satiety, and safety in the lives of the people.
And so a vote is coming. A vote to create a caste of people who are trusted with guns, and a caste disarmed. A vote to identify people by edict as disqualified for full citizenship. A vote to say yes to disarming for life (disenfranchising as well) the young man with a rock of cocaine base, while preserving full citizenship for the young man with a vial of cocaine powder. A vote too say yes to disarming the young man who calls Allah God with enough fervor to cause others discomfort, but to preserve the right of the young man who does not know God by name, but keeps evoking Him against the dreaded stranger.
Keeping guns out of the hands of people who ought not have guns is not the vote that should be taken, whether is involves universal background check, no-fly/no-buy, or good-guys with guns being the remedy against bad-guys with guns. All such designations create, whether by edict or some pretense of due process, a cohort who regard themselves as our protectors, but, like George Zimmerman, become our tormentors. No such cohort should exist among free men except under discipline. So says the Second Amendment. The vote ought be -- how to make access to that discipline consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment. How to have a national uniform discipline of armed citizens which resembles Dumas' Musketeers and not Duvalier's Macoute. How to encourage this body to be an enterprise of civic hospitality, not xenophobic hostility.
Last fall, I lobbied my Congressman for the second time on behalf of America Walks. My partner on visits to five Congresspersons (VA 3, 5, 7, 8, 10) and both Senators was a sports medicine physician. The easy access of hostile people to firearms came up in our travels. We both agreed that hostility was the issue more than firearms. And how to address hostility? Get outside. Get active. Get engaged in the world as it is, and not insist (and let ourselves be gratified by those who let us pretend, for a fee) that the would ought and could be just the way I like it. Infrastructure for unstructured spontaneous play and activity is the best investment Congress can make toward greater civility, satiety, and safety in the lives of the people.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
House Speaker
My email to Bobby Hurt (Rep VA 5th Congressional District)
I've a few litmus tests for politicians. They need to avow a belief in an ancient universe and natural selection. They need to be receptive to the notion that human activity influences climate, and have serious proposals on international cooperation to avert climactic disaster. They need to loathe predatory consumer finance.
I expect you fail all three of my "must have" criteria in a politician. But I can be persuaded otherwise. I wonder if any Republican congressman could meet all three criteria. If such exist, I hope he could be drafted as Speaker. I expect a sufficient number of Democrats could embrace such a person to provide votes to counter any opposition from the Crazy Caucus, and elect what is, essentially a national, not a party leader. I hope you will chose such a leader.
I've a few litmus tests for politicians. They need to avow a belief in an ancient universe and natural selection. They need to be receptive to the notion that human activity influences climate, and have serious proposals on international cooperation to avert climactic disaster. They need to loathe predatory consumer finance.
I expect you fail all three of my "must have" criteria in a politician. But I can be persuaded otherwise. I wonder if any Republican congressman could meet all three criteria. If such exist, I hope he could be drafted as Speaker. I expect a sufficient number of Democrats could embrace such a person to provide votes to counter any opposition from the Crazy Caucus, and elect what is, essentially a national, not a party leader. I hope you will chose such a leader.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Bobby Hurt again
I notice gas prices lately have not given you an opportunity to demagogue. Though perhaps you're tempted to gloat, as lives have been jeopardized and communities ruined for tertiary recovery of fossil energy. I remember the days, in Nixon's administration, and Ford's, when I worked as a summer intern for what was then ERDA, I believe, predecessor to the DoE, abstracting proposals for such technologies. I'm delighted to see them brought to fruition. I'm not so delighted at the methane cloud above New Mexico and contaminated well water in other communities. Perhaps even aquifer depletion is occurring. (I forgot about earthquakes when writing Bobby Hurt). All these externalities by which we are subsidizing the current cheap price of gas. These externalities must be internalized into the price of crude and methane and gasoline, by regulated compensation and strict tort liability for the extractors. Let's pay at the pump for their increased direct and underwriting expenses.
I've said as much in the past. Why I write now is because I got an email from the Union of Concerned Scientists about the issue of proprietary formulations of fracking chemicals as an impediment to community and plaintiff action. I call on you to set low thresholds for presumptive evidence of harm, sufficient to subpoena and force disclosure of chemicals used, and as I've said in the past, to create a rebutable presumption that such chemicals in groundwater both originate from the fracking operation and contribute to illness if such contribution is evident in laboratory animals. Underwriting costs will likely soar in a just legal and regulatory system for tertiary extraction. SO BE IT!! PAY AT THE PUMP!!!
I've said as much in the past. Why I write now is because I got an email from the Union of Concerned Scientists about the issue of proprietary formulations of fracking chemicals as an impediment to community and plaintiff action. I call on you to set low thresholds for presumptive evidence of harm, sufficient to subpoena and force disclosure of chemicals used, and as I've said in the past, to create a rebutable presumption that such chemicals in groundwater both originate from the fracking operation and contribute to illness if such contribution is evident in laboratory animals. Underwriting costs will likely soar in a just legal and regulatory system for tertiary extraction. SO BE IT!! PAY AT THE PUMP!!!
Friday, August 15, 2014
Bobby Hurt Wrote Back!!!
And I reciprocated .......
I was quite fond of Virgil's "Goode News." Virgil had some peculiar views. He was proud of them. They marked him as a maverick, not a marionette. Your newsletters have consistently pointed to the latter. I think I've expressed myself on that point repeatedly. I won't belabor.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote on the subject of your evident glee in thwarting the private property rights of St. James College, and your gratuitous parroting of unfounded and pejorative characterization by the looney fringe of the motivations and actions of our President. Also, you were proud of legislation that guts humane and wholesome laws, rather than fully fund their enforcement, and encourage Lawrenceville's participation in upholding the Rule of Law.
None of the recent response to my email addresses my concerns, but neither does it reinforce my concerns. You speak as a Congressman -- saying essentially nothing, but in a way that reflects a consideration of broad concerns which indeed have thwarted even the heroic efforts of Bush 43 to bring about a consensus. We are a similar age. If my father has his way, I'd have been Hampton-Sidney class of 1976. Instead, I went to Carnegie Mellon, and remember a fondness of Woody Guthrie, especially his Hobo's Lullaby and Los Gatos. That was 1948. It ain't going away. They ain't going away. I remember at Carnegie being a fan of Milton Freedman. Funny how Chile suffered under his advisorship. Funny how Alan Greenspan regrets the failure of objectivist ideology as a governing principle. Funny how those same principles failed Bremer's consulship in Iraq. YOU AND PAUL RYAN ARE IN THRALL TO A PROVEN FAILURE. -- but I digress. Dr. Freedman spoke of voting with your feet. What is more violent? The intrusion of our borders, or what is necessary to deflect that intrusion? Are people coming here to be given stuff? I think not. They want to be safe. They want to pursue aspirations. They want to be Americans!
I digress again. I was doing Census work in 1999 in the orchard country around Covesville during harvest season. When I had car trouble -- who came to my aid? Not the priest. Not the Levite. THE SAMARITAN! I'm proud to have such neighbors. I wish the law would adapt to the facts on the ground rather than promote violence to alter those facts. In fact, I demand it. Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Pope Francis all demand it. And that is a much better governing principle than the "Triumph of the Will" philosophy prevalent in the Bush Administration. Perhaps Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand aren't so bad after all -- it's the Leni Riefenstahl aberration of the wingnut Right that screwed up Chile's and Iraq's economy, and are working hard (out of Wichita) to undermine our own.
In closing -- I wasn't particularly pleased by your response to my email, but was at least pleased to not be so aggressively and egregiously displeased as is routine from you weekly newsletter.
I was quite fond of Virgil's "Goode News." Virgil had some peculiar views. He was proud of them. They marked him as a maverick, not a marionette. Your newsletters have consistently pointed to the latter. I think I've expressed myself on that point repeatedly. I won't belabor.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote on the subject of your evident glee in thwarting the private property rights of St. James College, and your gratuitous parroting of unfounded and pejorative characterization by the looney fringe of the motivations and actions of our President. Also, you were proud of legislation that guts humane and wholesome laws, rather than fully fund their enforcement, and encourage Lawrenceville's participation in upholding the Rule of Law.
None of the recent response to my email addresses my concerns, but neither does it reinforce my concerns. You speak as a Congressman -- saying essentially nothing, but in a way that reflects a consideration of broad concerns which indeed have thwarted even the heroic efforts of Bush 43 to bring about a consensus. We are a similar age. If my father has his way, I'd have been Hampton-Sidney class of 1976. Instead, I went to Carnegie Mellon, and remember a fondness of Woody Guthrie, especially his Hobo's Lullaby and Los Gatos. That was 1948. It ain't going away. They ain't going away. I remember at Carnegie being a fan of Milton Freedman. Funny how Chile suffered under his advisorship. Funny how Alan Greenspan regrets the failure of objectivist ideology as a governing principle. Funny how those same principles failed Bremer's consulship in Iraq. YOU AND PAUL RYAN ARE IN THRALL TO A PROVEN FAILURE. -- but I digress. Dr. Freedman spoke of voting with your feet. What is more violent? The intrusion of our borders, or what is necessary to deflect that intrusion? Are people coming here to be given stuff? I think not. They want to be safe. They want to pursue aspirations. They want to be Americans!
I digress again. I was doing Census work in 1999 in the orchard country around Covesville during harvest season. When I had car trouble -- who came to my aid? Not the priest. Not the Levite. THE SAMARITAN! I'm proud to have such neighbors. I wish the law would adapt to the facts on the ground rather than promote violence to alter those facts. In fact, I demand it. Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Pope Francis all demand it. And that is a much better governing principle than the "Triumph of the Will" philosophy prevalent in the Bush Administration. Perhaps Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand aren't so bad after all -- it's the Leni Riefenstahl aberration of the wingnut Right that screwed up Chile's and Iraq's economy, and are working hard (out of Wichita) to undermine our own.
In closing -- I wasn't particularly pleased by your response to my email, but was at least pleased to not be so aggressively and egregiously displeased as is routine from you weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)