danw@oliven.UUCP (danw) (03/04/85)
[] Many many years ago in a place called middle earth there existed a ring of evil power. Whoever possessed this ring had great power over the lives of others. Unfortunately, the wearer of the ring invariably turned to evil. ( There was a long and unbroken history of this happening) . There was a group of good guys who realized that the ring, as long as it existed , would continue to cause unhappiness. The good guys banded together with a common goal: to destroy the ring by casting it into a sacred fire. The good guys were opposed by a group who banded together with a common philosophy: they felt that the past failures were the result of evil men. By proper application of their philosophy, they felt they could select from among their members, individuals who were so good that they could wear the ring of absolute power. THEY would do only good to their fellows, and never-ever abuse the absolute power. The good guys said they were only interested in power, and all the rest was only words. A great battle resulted with no clear winner. ------- Many years passed. The good guys now call themselves Libertarians, and they claim the ring of evil power is really coercive central government. They claim the sacred fire is the enlightened self-interest of the democratic majority. They claim that centralized government has always and will always cause great harm, if given enough time and power. ------- The good guys are opposed by a group who call themselves socialists. They claim that all of the above is just a fairy tail. All we have to do is give the socialists the right to take property and liberty from us at will ( they will pick who and when ) and the result will be more good for the majority of us. One wonders who is REALLY telling the fairy tail. danw
ncg@ukc.UUCP (N.C.Gale) (03/09/85)
And so the Good Guys won their struggle. Once they persuaded the common folk to their point of view, victory was swift. The Evil Ring of Power was cast into the Sacred Fire, and the Middle Earth was free from its corrupting influence forever. Yet all was not happy in the world. For there existed a number of horrible beasts of awsome power, who had been afraid to emerge while the Ring existed. But now, they crawled out from their lairs and began to wreak devastation upon the defenceless folk. Each one carved an empire from the lands that had been held by the Wielder of the Ring, and the peoples became their slaves, tools to further each Beast's power. These monsters became known as 'Plutocrats'. The common people came to realise that they were now worse off than they had been under the Ring of Power - that while the Ring had undesirable side-effects on its wielder, its power had its source in Order and Accountability. Whenever a Ring wielder had become evil from using it, another wielder had been selected. But now the Ring was destroyed forever, and it would take centuries to forge another. Alas, but that the common folk had only considered more carefully the arguements of the Good Guys - for now the Beasts of Power would not relinquish their hold easily. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The above has been a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Bad Guys. -Nigel Gale