Poemranker [Replying] Thu Nov 21 21:49:10 PST 2024

Replying to a comment on:

Bri's Room (not done) (Free verse) by Sunshine Conkey

A little girl named Bri had an awful lot of stuff she saved and saved it but it wasn't enough. She put it in a closet and stacked it on the floor But even when her room was filled She wanted more and more. One day while playing She wanted her special pen to draw her favorite doll. But after looking everywhere, she couldn't find them at all.

zodiac

16-Dec-05/5:32 AM

Why don't you read your Fountainhead Anniversary preface again? A lot of this ground has already been covered.

For one, your refusal to hand out is partly what made them thugs. And we're not talking about giving food to Osama; we're talking about giving food to the moderate Muslim before he radicalizes and carries Osama's bomb into, say, Concord Mills (www.concordmills.com ). That's not giving into extortion, since the future bomber is currently not an enemy. My question is, if you can prevent him from becoming an enemy, at a very low cost, isn't that the self-interested thing to do?

For two, it's all well and good to be so high-minded, until some guy shoots you for your TV. Roarkian as I'm sure you are, you will not be able to stop him from shooting you. Nor will you be able to stop the bomber from blowing you up in Concord Mills. However you look at it, the self-interested position is to stop him from wanting to kill you before he tries and succeeds.

re [North] Korea, etc: Yes, we're conceding tons *after* they've already become an enemy and extortionist. Of course they're going to just ask for more without changing their policies; they have no incentive not to. And yes, there's very little supporting information, as far as world politics go, for the notion that handing out *before* one becomes an enemy works, mostly because governments aren't very good at doing that. There is, however, this: Since 1998, at-risk youth outreach programs in NC have reduced incarcerations for juvenile delinquents by 65%, have lowered recidivism and gang application across the board, and have significantly increased college enrollment by at-risk youth, at the expense of about $8 million (since 1998). That means, for less than 14 cents per year for the last 7 years, you've been able to reduce crime - ie, the risk that you'll have your self-interest compromised by some gun-weilding mugger.

What have you got to compare with that? "Give a man a fish" :-(

This has nothing to do with wealth=intelligence, and a lot to do, I suspect, with being your pet tirade. Let's go back to what we were originally talking about, okay?

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