From: "Mark" 


"John Beckett"  wrote
in message news:1d2ih1tjchbrbobaan47s4bru7gt4sfdel{at}4ax.com...
> "Mark"  wrote in message
news::
>> I find this whole overblown and positively hysterical "blame
game" that's
>> going down as people continue to suffer to be entirely disgusting.
>
> Fair comment. In my post, I didn't want to imply that it would be a good
> idea to worry about blame at the moment.

For the record: I didn't think you did.

> I think that the fact that the US is revealed as vulnerable is dangerous
> for the future. It may well encourage terrorists.

That's a valid concern. In my mind, it makes our mission to transform the
middle-east all that more imperative -- because we (and all societies) are
indeed vulnerable and always will be. The only true solution is spreading
freedom as soon as possible.

> It is hard to work out the best way to use limited  resources. Here in
> Australia, our hospitals are getting more and more run down, with
> nurses/doctors more and more overworked. It's great for the short-term
> budget, but it means that our society would have trouble dealing with
> disasters (e.g. wide-spread human bird flu).

I do worry about the bird flu thing, but haven't felt it worth discussing
from a threat point of view, as I don't really think there's enough info
out there to figure out what "they" know or don't know at this
point. But, yes if that type of epidemic occurs in the future, it's not a
good thing to allow health care facilities to bear the brunt of any budget
cuts now.

> The point I am clumsily approaching is my belief that society should be
> spending more money on infrastructure.

And I'm submitting, for your consideration, that the spread of freedom I
mention above is exactly that -- an investment in world-wide
infrastructure.

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