Thoughts & Quotes of Blupete:

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GAMBLING:

§ See blupete's commentary of -- July, 1998.
GENIUS:

§ See blupete's commentary of -- December 21, 1997.
GOD:

¶ I find it impossible to believe that a world so full of evil was the work of an Author combining infinite power with perfect goodness and righteousness.

¶ "Though they may think the proof incomplete that the universe is a work of design, and though they assuredly disbelieve that it can have an Author and Governor who is absolute in power as well as perfect in goodness, they have that which constitutes the principal worth of all religions whatever, an ideal conception of a Perfect Being, to which they habitually refer as the guide of their conscience; and this ideal of Good is usually far nearer to perfection than the objective Deity of those, who think themselves obliged to find absolute goodness in the author of a world so crowded with suffering and so deformed by injustice as ours." (John Stuart Mill, Autobiography.)

§ See blupete's essay -- "God."
GOOD & EVIL:

¶ A Manichee was an adherent to a religious sect that existed in Persia in the 3rd century after Christ. It was a religious system widely accepted from the third to the fifth century, composed of Gnostic Christian, Mazdean, and pagan elements. (OED.) It is a Manichian notion that there is in the universe a division of spirits into hostile camps, good and evil. The special feature of the system which the name chiefly suggests to modern readers is the dualistic theology, according to which Satan was represented as co-eternal with God.

¶ Bertrand Russell: "I may as well begin by confessing that for many years it seemed to me to be perfectly self-evident that pleasure is the only good and pain the only evil. Now, however, the opposite seems to me self-evident." [Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1872-1914) (Boston: Little, Brown; 1967) at p. 237.]

§ See blupete's commentary of -- November 21st, 1999.
GOVERNMENT:

¶ "Men have not, at bottom, been contending about forms of government. Writers and orators have; but the mass of nations do not enter into theories; they look to the practical effects. They have been seeking such a change as will render their lives more happy and less humiliating, with very little regard as to names and forms." [Cobbett, as quoted by Spater, William Cobbett: The Poor Man's Friend (Cambridge University Press, 1982) at vol.#2, p.335.]

¶ "The effects of a change from good government to bad government is not fully felt for some time after the change has taken place. The talents and the virtues which a good constitution generates may for a time survive that constitution. Thus the reigns of princes, who have established absolute monarchy on the ruins of popular forms of government often shine in history with a peculiar brilliancy. But when a generation or two has passed away, then comes signally to pass that which was written by Montesquieu, that despotic governments resemble those savages who cut down the tree, in order to get at the fruit. During the first years of tyranny, is reaped the harvest sown during the last years of liberty." [Macaulay, "War of the Succession of Spain" (1833).]

¶ "Prosperity is the test of good government, but prosperity must first be proved." (John Stuart Mill, "The British Constitution.")

§ See blupete's essay -- "The Theory of Government."
GOVERNMENT, LOCAL (Municipality):

¶ "The hide was reckoned to be the amount of land necessary to support a family, and to the [Anglo-Saxon] king a hundred hides made up a convenient unit of government ..." [Harding, A Social History of English Law (Pelican, 1966) p. 20.]
GOVERNMENT DEBT:

¶ "The rich, no longer being able to rule by force, have invented this scheme that they might rule by fraud." [Shelley, as quoted by Blunden, Shelley, A Life Story, (London: Collins, Readers Union, 1948) p. 226.]

¶ In a Canadian magazine (Maclean's September 21st, 1992), a man by the name of Newman wrote his conclusions, "no matter how horrendous the risk may be of expanding our already-bloated deficit," the Canadian will have to spend itself out of its current economic woes; as this man saw it, this was the only way to save the economy. Of course I wrote the magazine; but my note didn't make its pages. What I wrote was this:
"Mr. Newman reminds me of a medieval physician approaching a deathly pale, many times bled, prone patient; his blood letting tools at the ready: - or, maybe, of a deranged fire-fighter who approaches a burning building with a bucket of gasoline.
The economic problems of this country have come about as a direct result of 30 to 40 years of too much governing (read spending); we hardly need them to 'start governing again,' - as if they have yet to stop. The economic 'cure' for the 'comatose slump,' which Mr. Newman (and others) detect, can hardly be expected to be one that prescribes an additional dose of the disease. The cure, while painful in its administration, is this: systematically reduce the deficit to the point where there is none (it will take a few years); reduce government spending to those areas that are truly for the common good (transferring a third of our taxes to government security holders, - is not); and, finally, to constitutionally bar governments from running with prolonged 'operating deficits,' viz., to constitutionally oblige government to tax as it goes."
As for the "public debt," put aside the question, whether, or not, "our children" will some day have to pay off the debt, the real difficulty is this: the debt, both federal and provincial, has grown to such proportions that governments must now pay a huge part of its current revenue (taxes we pay) just on the interest to carry the debts. Thus, with an increasingly higher proportion of the government budget spent on interest, governments find themselves obliged to cut back in other areas, areas -- some would urge -- where we need to spend more, not less. In other words, the climbing levels of spending, resulting in corresponding climbing levels of taxation; have greatly impacted on the ability of governments to use its spending and taxing powers as fiscal tools to achieve "desirable social ends." Let me illustrate: the total government spending, all levels of government, in 1970, per capita, was $1,452; in 1988 it was $10,473. Next look at the composition of total government spending as it was in 1970 compared to 1988 (Horry & Walker, "Government Spending Facts," The Fraser Institute, Tables 1.3 & 2.3.):

					 1970			 1988
	Education			 19.1%			 11.5%
	Interest Charges		  8.5%			 18.2%
	Protection			 10.1%			  8.0%
	Health				 13.7%			 13.5%

GUNS:

§ See blupete's essay -- "The Right to Bear Arms.."

§ See blupete's essay -- "Rights: Not Absolute: But Very Nearly So.."

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