Decius wrote:

Furthermore, the nature of anti-terrorism involves the military in domestic affairs. The entire premise of the War on Terror, and specifically fights over FISA, Habeas Corpus, and cases like Jose Padilla involve the use of military capabilities and practices against domestic targets.

(Footnote: The UK has taken a different tact and they have gone back to talking about Terrorism as a criminal issue and not a military issue. I find this somewhat comforting, although I still think the UK is becoming a surveillance society. However, I think the problem in the UK is fundamentally different than it is in the US and this is driving the difference in approach moreso that these kinds of philosophical questions.)

These things compose most of the intellectual criticisms against the Bush administration; that these changes are myopic not because they cause wide spread difficulty now, but because they undermine democracy over long periods of time. Your discussion of the fall of the Roman Republic seems to fit right in to this criticism. Would you agree?

yes

Decius wrote:

In regard to debt, yes, you're right, debt does generate wealth, and can expect wealth to increase and the cost of providing a particular standard of living to decrease over time. I think the problem when you talk about entitlement programs is that the standard of living that people expect to have goes up over time as the general wealth and technological sophistication of the society improves, and so people's expectations in regard to medical treatment and pensions increase over time. Its possible, ney likely, that for both demographic and technological reasons our expectations have become disconnected from what we can reasonably provide. The view that technological advances will fix everything is as wishful in the case of entitlements as it is in the case of energy sustainability.

i'm not clear what you mean by entitlements

i was trying to say that military service leading to access to higher education -- higher education leads to better jobs and an expanded social and economic horizon for those individuals and it avoids one of the Roman pitfalls ie the emergance of an army whch doesn't emerge from and have an investment in the society it is defending -- we have already seen calls for letting others defend the US and the West by proxy rather than enact our own defence

i would prefer a different way since I deplore the inequality of the situation where the West is defended only by its poor who use the military as a stepping stone into prosperity and the wealth which should be more evenly distributed -- i loath the inequalities our respective societies create as a matter of intent (the argument that inequality motivates wealth creation -- the reasoning behind the Bush tax cuts) however i do not have a remedy for the ills of capitalism merely suggest a certain amelioration of its worst excesses

but long term i do believe that through technology we can sort it out
-- nanotechnology -- biotechnology etc but then maybe i read too much science fiction -- i've always liked Iain Bank's argument that money is a method of rationing scarce resources and much can be done through technology to remove scarcity -- the solar system is resource rich although clearly finite -- there is much scope

Decius wrote:

Furthermore, this issue is locked in the kind of partisan gridlock that keeps a number of issues stalled out in American politics. The Republican point of view is we should provide as little as we can get away with, and the Democratic point of view is that there is absolutely no problem. Often this sort of gridlock is used intentionally when both sides must pander to interests but truly desire to maintain the status quo. Its always been my impression that the interests in question desire to maintain the status quo because the people involved will be dead when this comes to fruition, and my generation will be left holding the hot potato when the fuse runs out.

the right left arguments regarding welfare

is to me as I said a moral question of ameliorating the excesses of capitalism

lower growth is a fair price for a more just and equal society
higher taxation is the price of equality and justice
but that's damn hard to sell

Decius wrote:

The only alternative I can see is to repair the demographic problem with a massive influx of immigration: exactly the sort that Bush administration failed to achieve recently.

i believe in immigration

my home Leicester is one third Indian and Pakistani and it is soon to be majority non-ethnically British in fact with the recent influx from Poland and the former Eastern bloc probably is already
i love the diversity and it is a very positive economic story

and today I am pleased to say I had coffee with a very pretty Polish girl so I have even more reason today

RE: FT.com / World - Learn from the fall of Rome, US Comptroller warns