Doug says about my comment below, talking about why the collapse of the FSU was a disaster:: > This is why you're not really a liberal. You get a bit of a crossdressing thrill out of donning the label though, don't you? First of I think that this is intended as a compliment, and I take it in that spirit. Nonetheless I am a liberal (and so are you, and so is almost everyone on this list) in the fundamental sense of political liberalism: I support representative, limited governent elected in competitive elections by universal suffrage and backed up by extensive civil and political liberties and rights. I (and you, and indeed I think every single person on this list, including the religious ones if there are any) am also a philosophical liberal in the Enlightenment sense, that is, I accept the irreducible fact of irreconcible diversity about ends and conceptions of the good life, and draw from this the conclusion that government and society should be publically secular and nonreligious, also not dominated by any one group's conception of the good life. Finally, I am (and so are you)  fait de mieux a big gummint liberal in the colloquial American sense in favor of higher taxes and more spending on social programs, and less restrictive legislation into people's personal lives (e.g., sexual habits), while also being pro-criminal defendent and civil plaintiff. Of course I'm not in favor of many things that New Deal/Great Society libs were in favor of, but that's a  lot of shared ground. So there are three senses, and only one provisional one, in which I am a liberal. And so are you. And you, and you, and you, hypocrite liberal! mon semblable, mon frère. jks  Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">andie nachgeborenen wrote: >That's always true, Luke. Since the future is unwritten, it always >remains to be seen. Therefore that statement is unhelpful and no >answer to anything. It was predictable -- I and others predicted >(not quite accurately in detail, but accurate enough) -- that the >collapse of central authority in the FSU would be disaster for the >people of the FSU and the world. Actually when I predicted it it the >SU wasn't F yet. It was obvious that the economy would be dismantled >and looted by predators, that the leadership was following a >disaterous Sachisna policy designed to impversih the nation, and >that the US and the West had no good intentions towards the FSU. >Moreover the collapse of the other superpower has destroyed the >space left to small nations to maneouver and invested the US with >power to engage ina lmsot unlimited imperialism. In short, the >collapse of the USSR was a total disaster, and it was inevitable >that it would be such. (The end of Stalinism, that's another story.) </BLOCKQUOTE> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/finance/mailtagline/*http://taxes.yahoo.com/">Yahoo! Tax Center</a> - forms, calculators, tips, and more