Posted on 02/17/2010 4:56:00 AM PST by maggief
Surprising how many people do not understand that. Free enterprise works when it has a moral foundation. Without it we get Russia today and...well...what we saw with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and others here. I'm seeing defenses of GS helping Greece hide its debt and they all focus on "GS didn't do anything illegal, it went right to the line maybe, but ..." which misses the whole point. We are also seeing companies, Globe Crossings being Exhibit #A,which apparently broke no law but were created by bankers with the intention of shorting it into the basement and bankruptcy. This mentality has to be purged from the system. Re-structuring, passing more laws or beefing up enforcement won't do it. Those with no moral compass will always game the system. We'll never get rid of all of them but society needs to make those people pariahs, not super-stars.
Btw..remember where you read the Mt. Vernon statement was going to shut out social conservatives? I saw it last night and for the life of me, cannot remember where.
That was how Rush seemed to characterize it on his show yesterday. In fairness to Rush, I was busy with some other things at the time and only caught his remarks in passing, so rather than misquote him, I would qualify my assertion by stating that was the impression with which I was left.
In their defense, a lot of these people vocally criticized the Bush administration’s spending. Also, where were the people during all of these same things? I agree that there are a lot of entrenched “leaders” who need to be replaced, but I do not think there is anything inherently more virtuous or competent about “the people” than people who we know by name. We can draw new leaders from “the people,” but once we do, they’ll be a part of the elite, by definition.
I read an article earlier today that contrasted the Mount Vernon Statement’s words on foreign policy with Washington’s foreign policy. That then reminded me that when Washington declared American neutrality in the war between England and France, Madison and Jefferson thought it was an unconstitutional exercise of power. Things have really changed.
I think they are genuinely upset with the state of the conservative movement and the political state of our country, but I think they made a mistake in thinking that this was a good time for anyone who might appear to be entrenched or “elite” to claim to be speaking for the movement. Then again, maybe they recognized that problem and thought that it needed to be done, in spite of that.
The transcript of it on his site is consistent with this. It looks as though he was talking about Palin endorsing McCain, and as an aside mentioned the Mount Vernon Statement. I’m not even sure what his source was, though I am sure that he had one. He said that some of the more important leaders of this group said that they would not participate unless the social content were removed. It wasn’t clear from what he said whether they got what they wanted or not, but now that we have seen the actual Mount Vernon Statement, it appears that they did.
How many books would the leaders sell and how much fund-raising (salary raising IMHO) would there be if they actually solved problems instead of merely pointing fingers at each other?
Is there any way to tell apart the sincere people and the people who want the cause to fail to keep their careers alive? It can’t be that the source of their funding in fighting for the cause depends on the problem continuing to exist. Doesn’t every cause’s funding depend on the problem that it is trying to solve continues to exist? Where would sincere organizations (fighting for causes) get their funding, otherwise?
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