Subject:
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Re: Only nations can generate patriotic pride (Re: Some good news for a change, maybe?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:24:08 GMT
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Viewed:
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848 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Parsons wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks wrote:
> As per my reply to Chris I wasn't actually saying that governments should run
> sewerage, only that government is critically important, like sewerage is
> critically important.
OK, thanks for clearing that up. I do hope you can see why we all misinterpreted
your original wording though.
> > 2. Completely privately owned things that work just fine are a large part of
> > what I feel patriotic about. Certainly I take a lot more patriotic pride in
> > thinking about the achievements of, say, IBM, than I do the "achievements" of
> > the BATF. One of the great things about the US (and other western democracies,
> > and other countries where capitalism has been allowed to function) is that great
> > things consistently get done by private organizations.
>
> I think we've got a large area of agreement on this, looking at these capitalist
> ventures as an expression of American-ness. Does your disagreement suggest that
> the you do NOT feel that your government can act in ways that make you feel
> patriotic? Or just that government is not critically important generally.
Neither. I think a government is *capable* of acting in ways that would make me
feel patriotic, and in fact the US government HAS done so in the past. There are
no perfect entities in this world and all entities, public or private, may well
do things that would not make me feel patriotic. But on balance, my government
hasn't done much, if anything, to make me feel that way lately. Nof for a good
15 years or so. (maybe a few things here and there).
So it's not a matter of CAN. It CAN. It just hasn't.
Further, government is very important. It's less noticable how important when
it's functioning correctly, but it's quite noticable when it isn't.
Meanwhile there are lots of private organizations (not all, mind you) that, on
balance, looking at everything they do, are far far more worthy of pride.
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