It will never cease to amaze me that in the United States of America, the world's bastion of anti-Communism, nearly 70% of the people polled consistently think that our Constitution includes the dictate "[f]rom each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
All Hail Marx and Lenin! (Karl and Vladimir, not Groucho and John--Lennon, that is--and with apologies to Firesign Theater.)
But there is a reason that Marx, Karl, was wrong: he never bothered to answer or even consider the question "Who decides?"
One person's evaluation of his talents and needs can differ markedly from another person's assessment of same for that first person. It's not going to happen that we all happily agree 100% on these assessments for everyone, including ourselves. That's just not human nature. So the person who gets to make the determination is the person with the power . . . and that way lies dictatorship, not the withering away of the state. It's more like the concentration of the state.
So either people simply do not understand what Marx meant, or they have a major mental disconnect between believing in what Marx was getting at but still voting for people like Dubya.
If you've read "What's The Matter With Kansas?" by Thomas Frank, you'll become a firm believer in the disconnect.
I am trying to take comfort in the fact that Dubya really is officially a lame duck, and that since even his staunchest allies in the GOP-controlled Congress all eventually have to face reelection, Dubya's perceived power will wither away quickly in this, his second term . . . but I don't know. Everything has been going so wrong for so long that I am of two minds: either the pendulum will swing back, or we'll go over the edge and all will be lost forever.
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The entire debate on Creationism (or Intelligent Design, or whatever you want to call it) vs. Evolution is a false argument. There really is no serious conflict between science and religion if one thinks clearly: they are not designed to answer the same question. Science asks "How?" Religion, "Why?"
But the continued popular confusion/fuzzy thinking on this and other such matters just illustrates another of my fundamental tenets: there is a reason that a grade of "C" is average. The vast majority of the world's population is operating at that level or below.
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For once, the Super Bowl was better and more interesting than the vast majority of the commercials debuting during the game. I have to confess to liking the Budweiser commercial wherein all the wild animals come to audition for spots on the Clydesdale hitch, with the driver saying to the little burro, "See what you've started!"
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The publiciation of Jose Canseco's book (with all its allegations of steroid use by both current and former players) has been timed to coincide with the beginning of Spring Training. How original! (She said, sarcastically.) I wonder just how much of what he is claiming is true. I usually try to evaluate someone's credibility by asking myself which party in a dispute has more to GAIN by lying, but here, the equities are about equal. Jose will get a lot more sales by asserting his lurid claims of players helping each other shoot up steroids; but the players named have a lot to gain by denying the truth of Jose's claims.
In fine, it's just plain sad. Baseball deserves better.
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