Moments in time captured with various odd symbols referred to in the lingua franca as letters.

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Sustainable Republicans

Its definitely a strange title for a blog post on such a liberally biased blog as this (yes I admit my bias). So what could I possibly mean by using such a word to describe a republican? The easiest answer would be to say that they have highjacked the term like just about everyone else these days (after all, an ill defined term can be used quite freely; freedom is a good example). No, what I mean by using this term in the same sentence is the interesting stance that the Republicans have taken on the bailout money and stimulus spending. They keep talking about or kids being poor (shall we remember for the sake of argument, just who spent the last eight years running up debts for the sake of planting a flag in "freedoms" name). This talk about the future generation is therefore a discussion on sustainable development; since one of its key notions is intergenerational equity. If you are rather unaware of what I am going on about here then you may try reading about it on Wikipedia (and then go to your library since your taxes pay for it) and read up on John Rawls. The Republicans are making the argument that our kids are going to be poor because of our choices now. This is rather strange, because in general the republicans have no problem using up all the oil and other non-renewable resources (in the name of the father, the son, and the free market). So if businesses were to use up all these resources that would be fine in the sense that it was a free market decision but trying to save the economy now in the hopes that growth in the future will make up for the lending is not ok. Strange thinking.

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