“Reason” is concerned, legitimately I think, about potential opposition in our new ruling class to anti-aging research and treatment:
All rapid legislation turns into a wish-list for those closest to power: the faster it is enacted, the greater the scale of corruption, and the more you can be sure that your interests are being directly harmed. The legislation discussed above is a good example of the way in which the politics of central control turn what would be a golden opportunity for a free market in healthcare into the modern equivalent of putting the old people out into the snow.
I wish we’d had better choices last November.
I still don’t understand why Fred Thompson garnered so little Republican support. He’d have been an infinitely better choice than McCain.
Thompson would have done a lot better if he’d actually wanted the job. He really never managed to convey any such desire.
And I speak as one who wanted very much for him to win. It doesn’t work very well when the candidate doesn’t want it as much as his supporters do.
Not wanting the job while being able to do it should be the primary qualification.
Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of system.
Er…McGehee, I think you mean we don’t have that kind of voters. The system delivers whatever the voters want. Right now, they want a combination of Caesar and Oprah, so that’s what they got.
I mean, the problem with democracy has always been with the components — men — from which you have to build it.
I meant system. What Crimso is talking about could only work where government officials are drafted, like we do with trial juries.
I actually think that would be a decent thing to try — we just don’t have a system that allows it.
What, randomly? You pick a citizen’s name out of a hat and he’s sworn in as President for four years?
Hmm. Seems obvious, as in the case of juries, you need a judge to reject obvious bad candidates, approve the lottery procedure, adjudicate disputes, enforce rules like you can’t, once President, abolish the lottery and become El Supremo, Dictator for Life. Who’s going to be the judge? All of us? We run this like some kind of American Idol contest? But…isn’t that what we have?
If not all of us, then you’ve just set up a Caesar plus Praetorian Guard system, Been tried.
I knew somebody was doing a remake of Logan’s Run, but I didn’t know it was Obama.