“It isn’t a problem with government; it’s a problem with the entire society. It’s what happened on Wall Street in the run-up to the subprime crisis. It’s a problem of people taking what they can, just because they can, without regard to the larger social consequences. It’s not just a coincidence that the debts of cities and states spun out of control at the same time as the debts of individual Americans. Alone in a dark room with a pile of money, Americans knew exactly what they wanted to do, from the top of the society to the bottom. They’d been conditioned to grab as much as they could, without thinking about the long-term consequences.” – Michael Lewis, Boomerang
We export this stuff, too
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Consequence now there’s a plot pusher.
Right over the brink.
Someplace in between deferring to heaven and living in the moment lives responsibility. A house remade every generation.
As Aristotle put it, moderation in all things. That includes moderation in moderation, but not to infinite regress. He was a sensible man and had no use either for infinity or extremity.
In some circles, it seems that concern for the larger social consequences is regarded as–well, socialist. And we all know that’s a dirty word these days.
Averil, It’s been a dirty word for sixty years, since Senator McCarthy’s time. In fact, longer than that. It’s been a dirty word since the Revolution of ’48–1848, that is. Since McCarthy, it’s been a slander that destroys careers in America.
But if the right wing were to get its way and abolish all the socialism in American government, what would they (and we–we’re all sailing on this ship of state together) get for their ideological purity? Revolution! The social consequences would indeed be large, then.
The fact that Christianity is a radically socialist ideology gets lost upon the denizens of this self-professed Christian nation. How’s that for irony?
To consider our common welfare is to me the job of a good citizen. Call me what you will.
CJ, I would like to call you friend, if I may.
Please do, Tetman. I will call you the same.