I posted this: Arizona governor Jan Brewer is being eviscerated for her "rude" greeting of Obama on the tarmac. Here's the raw video. It is clear that Brewer greeted Obama very cordially, so it is clear that Brewer was not being rude, at least initially.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mRhJwjwXqc&feature=player_embedded
www.youtube.com
S.B.: As an Obama supporter, I think way too much was made of this. The usual media fascination with the trivial over the profound.
Me: Agreed, trivial. However, the issue I'm interested in is how this always seems to go in favor of the most liberal of the parties involved. Remember that debate in NY with then-senator Clinton, when her opponent was accused of accosting her during the debate? Or how about the Giffords shooting in AZ, when civility was demanded from conservatives?
S.B.: I keep telling you, rich - reality has a liberal bias.
Me: "What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."
I am confident that if you take the red pill you will come around someday.
S.B.: There are not enough drugs in the world to turn me into a conservative, my friend.
Me: Not a conservative. Free your mind, Neo. It's NOT conservative vs. liberal, it's us vs. government. Us vs. the entrenched power structure. Us vs. the opponents of choice and liberty.
J.S.: Her state is being SUED by the FEDS because AZ law is enforcing FED law. If the FED would do what it is SUPPOSED to, AZ would not have to do what it HAS to do, which is PROTECTING its citizens and not having their budget wrecked because of ILLEGAL activities. GEEZ. Liberals PANDER to the ILLEGALS and their allies to get the PANDER VOTE! I think part of the PROBLEM is the DRUGS that were taken before CLASS in COLLEGE and actually absorb the liberal professors anti American ideas they spew....(was that my outside voice?)
S.B.: lol. wanna compare blood tests?
S.B.: And Rich -- I am PART of the government. Proudly. I turned down jobs with Dow, DuPont, IBM, and Reynolds' Aluminum so that I could work on things that would matter more to the world than simply helping the bottom line.
28 years later, I don't regret it one bit.
Me: C'mon, Scott, I think you know what I am talking about. You don't have regulatory enforcement duties. You don't make laws. You don't collect taxes from people. You don't have any power to take peoples' freedom from them.
Then unfortunately you present a false choice, that is, "helping" people vs. "the bottom line," as if only government does good, and private business is evil. That is callow and insipid, quite beneath you, Scott.
S.B.: Rich -- no, it's not an "either/or" choice -- but I have felt, quite sincerely, that protecting the environment and developing alternate forms of energy, and more recently working on counter terrorism research that helps prevent (for example) the import of dirty bombs into this country, has been MORE socially useful than, say, helping IBM make better disk drives, Dow make pesticides more profitably, or Reynolds to move their aluminum smelters offshore.
All of those things have some value, perhaps (though, the Dow job that was offered was questionable in that regard). But my friends in the private sector often bemoan the fact that all their technical decisions are driven by the bottom line -- not always leading to results that were really optimal from the view of society as a whole.
My point isnt' that private sector business is bad and government is good, but rather that I happen to truly believe in what I do as a government employee, and I don't think I could work up as much enthusiasm for something as boring as simply making money.
Me: You deny the false choice, then reassert it.
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