[MD] Food for Thought

[Case]

[Platt]
The last thing a free society needs is a bunch of intellectuals practicing
social engineering.

[Case]
You are right Platt it is better to let social matters be left to blind
chance. Then we can appeal to Manifest Destiny to glorify our success and
dismiss our failures.

[Platt]
Intellectuals love to use social laws to enforce their "public interest"
schemes at the point of a gun, the Social Security system being a prominent
case in point. (See Pirsig's comments about FDR's intellectuals.)  

[Case}
What Pirsig points out is that there was uncalled for faith in the ability
to control that excluded or ignored the role of dynamic change. I would say
this faith in control stems from a post-Newtonian reliance on mechanism
where the application of force is regarded as deterministic. It lingers. A
sign of hope was when Clinton talked about "growing" the economy. That
expressed to view that systems are more organic and opportunistic that the
machine view allows. Government policies should be design to influence or
nurture desired results. Applying force only produces and equal and opposite
reaction.