Stupid ASCII loader prompt

[Jerry McAllister]

> >
> > We live in a day and age where it is politically incorrect to
> > take pride
> > in anything, and it shows.
> >

Well, by now we are gleefully off topic for this list, so...
 
> No, not at all.  The right-wingers take lots of pride in successfully
> being able to destroy ANWR for example.
> 
> More accurately, the United States has a political system that is
> suceptable to control by minorities, and every once in a while the
> right-wingers who are a minority in the country, manage to seize
> control until cooler heads prevail.  We are in one of these times.

The USA system attempts/purports to _protect_ the minorities.  This
exists because supposedly the system tries to protect everyone, not
specifically the minorities.  It is only an artifact that sometimes
minorities find themselves able to use the system to influence some
outcome.  They do not seize control.   They wield whatever poser/influence 
they can muster, but they do not seize control.   

> Don't forget the same thing happened with Prohibition.  You and I wern't
> alive then, but the ultraconservative christians managed to take control
> then also, and the result of that failed attempt was the Mafia.

First, that wasn't such a minority or untraconservative outcome as
you might think.    It had next to nothing to do with Christianity
although some churches and church people got in to the fray.  It was
mostly more an unholy alliance of women activists and those who
were discovering the concept of social engineering.   It initially
enjoyed widespread support -- as well as widespread grumbling.  Most
who apposed it, presumed they could just ignore it which is what they
did.

Next, it was not exactly a failure.   The use of alcohol went down
very significantly.   

Finally, it was not the Mafia that gained power, but the Chicago,
Detroit and Galveston based bootlegger gangs.   They weren't Mafia
related for the most part and probably actually cut in to Mafia power 
during their brief reign.   

> I am afraid that a political system where the minority never gets a
> chance of control is much worse than a political system where the
> minority gets control every once in a while.  So enduring these periods
> of time is I am afraid, one of the payments that we must make.

It is more that we need to discipline ourselves to protect everyone
and when we begin to fail in that, some corrective events begin to
happen.   Some of those corrective events can actually be disastrous.
 
> Also remember if you examine the core of the ultraconservative beliefs
> that they do not have suppression of individual liberties in those
> beliefs.  So, any time the ultraconservatives get control they cannot
> help being hipocrites, and thus their movement carries with it the seeds
> of it's own destruction.  Don't forget what took down Newt Gringrich.
> All ultraconservatives are hipocrites when they attempt to apply their
> philosophy, thus the movement carries an automatic self-limit.

Sure, each 'ultra' group contains the seeds/tools of its own 
destruction.   So, lets leave this topic at that.   Either the 
ultra-anti-beastie or ultra-pro-beastie movements will destroy 
themselves.

////jerry

> 
> Ted
>