George W

Ad-hoc Lecturer, the semi-Strategic Corporal speaking before the bar last June:

"Now, about George W; and when I say that name I always render the hand salute -- because he did me a favor and I like to show respect and loyalty. -- His great-grand pop was a smart fellow; middle class; got his engineering degree and went to work for the big railroads which couldn't have been started or finished without the federal government land-grants and bond acts... anyway after a bit he goes to work in manufacturing for one of the Rockefellers who gets him appointed to the World War1 Production board and makes bigger money, builds a country-club, marries his kid Prescott off to one of the Walkers --in Investment banking...

So, George W is the son, grandson & great-grandson of millionaires on both sides of his family. I'm thinking that if his daddy worked in a gas station or delivered mail he might not have got himself into the White House... Now, point being there is no such thing as everybody starting off equal, or there being any thing as a totally free market in these United States. Maybe you'll find one in Afghanistan where you can buy/sell a ton of opium or a hundred machine guns or young boys for sex. But we don't want free markets here; we want orderly markets. Anyway, let's look at the Social Darwinism of Alisa Rosenbaum; I mean the Objectivism of Ayn Rand -- once you allow human families to start keeping and accumulating most of the wealth they come across through connivance, favors, who-they-knew, luck, hard work, what-ever --you launch a powerful next generation that ain't never had to compete in any market against anybody else. Social Darwinism over generations actually insures the dominance of the least-fit. That's one reason why empires have always crumbled over time.

--Sorry about the crack about Rosenbaum even it was her name; I'm always irked when folks do the same about Dylan..."