"A collectivized society under the rule of an elite. "That sounds like a corporate welfare state to me: socialism for the corporations and free enterprise for the rest of us.

I am always stunned how the crimes and excesses of self-appointed (or for that matter, freely-elected) governments are never considered crimes when committed by businesses. Individuals who bitterly and vocally (and rightly) oppose any control by government bureaucracies are usually silent to the manipulations and machinations of corporate ones. Power and the desire to accumulate it is a malignant cancer on human society, it has nothing to do with ideology or philosophy, politics or economics. It is a disease, like syphillis, which tends to infect certain personality types. It is a psychological phenomenon. There is no difference between a corporate executive and a Communist apparatchik, as recent events in the former Soviet Union and China have tended to bear out. The same guys are running the show now, except they are now in business...and the Mafia. And you can bet that if the Reds had won the Cold War all of our captains of industry would be Party members by now.

To think that the competition of free markets will always weed out the evil inherent in commerce is as infantile a thought as to believe that the vote and political activity will root out that same evil in political systems. If you watch the actions, not the rhetoric, of both politicians and businessmen, you will note that their major activity is to subvert the moderating effects of competition, both in the ballot box and the market. Both in politics and business, the players eventually stop competing with each other and join forces to compete against the consumer/citizen.

The introduction of ideology into this conflict only poisons any chance we might have to muddle our way through it alive. Ideology and partisanship obscure and ignore anything of value the "other side" might have to contribute, and discredits and dehumanizes them. At the same time it justifies any of the crimes we feel we may have to committ in order for the righteous (us, of course) to triumph. The rhetoric of the Left demonizes the greedy capitalist, but it is not he that I fear. The modern corporation is not run by an individual owner, it is a collective organization run by paid professionals who can be fired when they no longer serve the interests of that organization. It is a socialist organization which serves only the stockholders (substitute "workers" in Leftist jargon) but which generally operates as if it had a mind of its own. The modern corporation is the ultimate socialist nightmare come to earth. Don't you think most tobacco company executives aren't as aware that what they do is wrong as most Soviet Party members knew it? The collective imposes its own logic and agenda on us, it favors only its own self-perpetuation, and it coerces its members by a combination of carrot and stick. And eventually it succumbs to greed, which leads in its final stages to decadence. Decadence, by the way, is a technical Marxist term, it refers to the actions of a class which not only is hostile to its enemies' principles, but eventually becomes hostile to its own. Marx wasn't very good on finding answers, but he was very good at asking questions.

I confess to having somewhat left-of-center views myself, and make no apologies for it, but I see much of value in the philosophy of my ideological opponents, and on many issues I have what might be described as a conservative opinion. I am very upset at the atmosphere of partisanship which is ripping my country apart, and I blame Left and Right equally for it. I am outraged that vital scientific issues such as global warming must be viewed through ideological prisms of political correctness and pro-Americanism first. I am sputtering mad about the utter stupidity of the Left, and the smug maliciousness of the Right. But on this issue, Global Warming, the burden of proof must be placed on those who wish things to remain as they are. If you want to continue pissing in my soup, I shouldn't have to be the one to prove it's bad for me.