LAReader48

Stephens: From WikiLeaks to the Killing Fields - WSJ.com : "The Cambodian genocide is especially worth recalling today not only for what it was, but for the public debates in the West that immediately preceded it. 'The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns,' said then-congressman, now senator, Chris Dodd, by way of making the case against the Ford administration's bid to extend military assistance to the pro-American government of Lon Nol. In the New York Times, Sydney Schanberg reported from Cambodia that 'it is difficult to imagine how [Cambodian] lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone.' Mr. Schanberg added that 'it would be tendentious to forecast [genocide] as a national policy under a Communist government once the war is over.' - Sent using Google Toolbar"

wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion claims "The frequency of abortions is, however, similar whether or not access is restricted.[4]" I added to the Talk section about the page: Talk:Abortion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia : "'After 1973, legalization of abortion led to an approximately tenfold increase in the total number of abortions, though there is some dispute over the prelegalization statistics.[62]'. from Wikipedia article Abortion_in_the_United_States#Effects_of_legalization It is also a fact that the supply of children available for adoption basically disappeared after abortion was legalized, leading to adoption from other countries (sorry no cite but is easy to confirm). There may be third world countries were corruption is widespread where abortion laws (and many other laws) are ineffective. They should not be confused with countries with effective law enforcement where legalization makes a vast difference in availability and safety. (talk) 06:52, 11 Jul...

another way of putting it would be that there is a lot of conservativism in the world. Catholics , Muslims and most everybody in non-Western countries, except the elites, are socially conservative on sex, pornography, roles of women, traditional families. Europeans, esp. Germans, want less stimulus spending that the US does. Divorce rates are lower in most countries than the US. Germany requires counseling before an abortion. There are less protections for criminal defendants in most countries than the US. Most countries have stricter immigration policies than the US. there is no corporation income tax in Germany. Most countries regulate business more than the US, but but then they give back to business in subsidies and protection. When was the last time you heard of a strike against Airbus, Volkswagen or Toyota? Government and labor in most countries believe their great corporations have to be successful for their countries to survive global competition. in reference to: "Of cour...

What's wrong with the idea of fairness in reference to: "Yet the fact that everybody believes in fairness is a clue to what’s wrong with the notion. Like that other warm-blanket word, “community”, it signals limp thinking. What exactly is “fair” about restricting trade, for instance? Or “unfair” about letting successful people in business or other fields enjoy the fruits of their enterprise without punitive taxes?" - Bad language: Against fairness | The Economist ( view on Google Sidewiki )

Bad language: Against fairness | The Economist : "Yet the fact that everybody believes in fairness is a clue to what’s wrong with the notion. Like that other warm-blanket word, “community”, it signals limp thinking. What exactly is “fair” about restricting trade, for instance? Or “unfair” about letting successful people in business or other fields enjoy the fruits of their enterprise without punitive taxes? “Fairness” suits Britain’s coalition government so well not just because its meanings are all positive, but also because—like views within the coalition—they are wide-ranging. To one lot of people, fairness means establishing the same rules for everybody, playing by them, and letting the best man win and the winner take all. To another, it means making sure that everybody gets equal shares. Those two meanings are not just different: they are opposite. They represent a choice that has to be made between freedom and equality. Yet so slippery—and thus convenient to politicians—is ...

A couple of things I've seen recently have made me aware this is more common that I thought. At the Sand Diego Wild Animal Park, they said that while male lions often live 30 years in captivity, they seldom live more than 10 years in the wild, because of injuries caused in fights with other males, among other things. And a Nature episode about monkeys said a certain species in S America (Capuchin?) often battle each other in groups for the best feeding areas. More are killed by other monkeys of the same kind than by any predator. Reason for pessimism about the possibility of educating the aggressiveness out of man.